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THE 



SCRIPTURE CLUB 

OF VALLEY REST 



OR 



SKETCHES OF EVERYBODY'S 
NEIGHBOURS 



BY THE AUTHOR OF 
" The Barton Experiment" " Helens Babies" Etc. 



NEW YORK 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 
182 FIFTH AVENUE. 

1877 
LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
DAVIS 



COPYRIGHT, 

1877, 
BY G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS. 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 
A LIBERAL MOVEMENT 



CHAPTER II. 
SOME SPIRITUAL DIFFERENCES ; 20 

CHAPTER III. 
FREE SPEECH 42 

CHAPTEPx. IV. 
A SOLEMN HOUR COMPLETELY SPOILED 60 

CHAPTER V. 
FAMILIAR SOUNDS 78 

CHAPTER VI. 
BUILDER STOTT SAVES THE FAITH 92 

CHAPTER VII. 

FREE SPEECH BECOMES ANNOYING , 109 

3 



J y CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Page. 

AFTERMATH 126 



CHAPTER IX. 
THE DOCTRINE OF INSURANCE 144 

CHAPTER X. 
A DECISIVE BATTLE 162 

CHAPTER XI. 
CONCLUSION 183 



SCRIPTURE CLUB. 



CHAPTER I. 

A LIBERAL MOVEMENT. 

THE success of the Second Church of Val- 
ley Rest was too evident to admit of doubt, 
and there seemed to be no one who begrudged 
the infant society its prosperity. Most of its 
members had come to the village from that 
Western city known to all its inhabitants as 
being the livest on the planet, and they had 
brought their business wits with them. At first 
they worshiped with the members of the First 
Church, established forty years before, and with 
an Indian or two still among its members ; but 
it soon became evident to old members and 
new that no single society could be of sufficient 



2 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

theological elasticity to contain all the worship- 
ers who assembled in the old building. There 
were differences of opinion, which, though 
courteously expressed, seemed great enough to 
claim conscientious convictions for their bases ; 

<3 

so with a Godspeed as hearty as their welcome 
had been, the newer attendants organized a 
new society. They were strong, both numeri- 
cally and financially, so within a year they had 
erected and paid for a costly and not hideous 
church building, settled a satisfactory pastor, and 
organized a Sunday-school, three prayer-meet- 
ings, and a sewing society. The activity of the 
new church became infectious, and stimulated 
the whole community to good works ; occasion- 
ally one of the other societies would endeavor to 
return some of the spiritual favors conferred by 
the Second Church, but so leisurely were the 
movements of the older organizations that be- 
fore they could embody a suggestion in an expe- 
rience the new church would have discerned it 
afar off and put it into practical operation. 



A LIBERAL MOVEMENT. 3 

It was in the rapid manner alluded to that the 
Second Church came finally by a feature which 
long and gloriously distinguished it. It was 
i i.5o by the church clock one Sunday morning 
when Mrs. Buffle, wife of the great steamboat 
owner, who made his home at Valley Rest, no- 
ticed her husband's face suddenly illumine as if 
he had just imagined a model for the best lake 
packet that ever existed; it was only 12.10, by 
the same time-piece, when about thirty of the 
solid members of the church, remaining after 
service, gathered in a corner of the otherwise 
vacant building, and agreed to Mr. Duffle's pro- 
posal that there should be organized a Bible class 
especially for adults. 

" When you think of it," explained the pro- 
jector, " it really seems as if there'd be no end 
to its usefulness. I call myself as orthodox a 
man as you can find in any church, anywhere, 
but there's lots of things in the Bible that I'm 
not posted on. I suppose it's the same with all 
of you ; each of you may have thought a great 



4 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

deal on some single subject, but you're not up 
in everything you haven't sat under preach- 
ers who talk about everything." 

" There aren't many preachers who dare to 
preach about everything," remarked young 
lawyer Scott, who had in marked degree the 
youthful appetite for the strongest mental food, 
and the youthful assumption that whatever can 
be swallowed is bound to be digested. 

"Nor that dares to say what he really be- 
lieves," added Captain Maile, who had that 
peculiar mind, not unknown in theology and in 
politics, which loves a doubt far more dearly 
than it does a demonstration. 

" Preachers are like the rest of us," said Mr. 
Buffle ; " they haven't time to study everything, 
and they have to take a good deal on the say- 
so of somebody else ; a good many things they 
may be mistaken about, but they'd better have 
some idea on a subject than none at all ; once 
get a notion into their heads and it'll roll around 
and make them pay attention to it once in a 



A LIBERAL MOVEMENT. 5 

"6 

while. And that's just what we need, I think, 
and it's what brought this Bible class idea into 
my mind. Each of us will express our minds 
on whatever may be the subject of the day's 
lesson, and we'll learn how many ways there are 
of looking at it. No one of us may change his 
mind all at once, but if he gets out of his own 
rut for an hour in a week, he'll find it a little 
wider and no less safer when he drops into it 
again." 

" And perhaps he may get it so wide that 
there'll be room enough in it for three or four, 
or half-a-dozen Christians to walk in it side by 
side, without kicking each other, or eyeing each 
other suspiciously," suggested Brother Radley, 
whose golden text always was, " It is good for 
brethren to dwell together in unity." 

" That's it\" exclaimed Mr. BufHe, his eyes 
brightening suddenly. (< That's it ! But I don't 
intend to do all the talking, gentlemen. I sug- 
gest that such of us as like the idea sign our 
names to an agreement to meet every Sunday 



6 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

for the purpose specified, and that we imme- 
diately afterward proceed to elect a teacher." 

" I don't wish to dampen any honest enthu- 
siasm for Biblical research ; " said Dr. Humble- 
top, a genial ex-minister ; " but from some re- 
marks which have been made it would seem as 
if doubt perhaps honest, but doubt for all that 
were to have more to do than faith with the 
motive of the proposed association. What we 
need what /feel to need, at least, and what I 
believe is the case with all who are here present 
is to be rooted and grounded in the faith 
which we profess. I would move, therefore, 
that if the class is to be informally organized in 
the manner proposed by Brother Buffle, that at 
least the creed of our church be appended to 
the document to which signatures are to be 
affixed." 

"Mr. Chairman," exclaimed Mr. Alleman 
(Principal of the Valley Rest Academy, and 
suspected of certain fashionable heresies), " I 
object. In our congregation here in this small 



A LIBERAL MOVEMENT. 7 

gathering, in fact is a large sprinkling of gen- 
tlemen who are not members of the church, and 
who do not accept our creed, though they en- 
joy worshiping with us : Brother Humbletop's 
resolution, if put into effect, would exclude from 
the proposed teachings the very class of men 
that we profess to believe are most in need of 
religious instruction. The churches are so 
rigid that a thinking man can scarcely gain ad- 
mission to them without lying, actually or con- 
structively : don't let us, in a class like that 
proposed, follow the example of the Pharisees, 
those very flowers of orthodoxy and ' lay on 
men's shoulders burdens grievous to be borne/ 
If our religion is what we claim it is, let us 
open our gates wide enough to admit every one 
who is at all interested to study God's ways as 
made known through the scriptures/' 

" Don't trouble yourself," said Captain Maile, 
who was as dyspeptic in body as in mind, but 
was also a keen observer of human nature ; " I 
don't see but saints need converting as badly as 



8 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

sinners do, and there's enough of them to keep 
you busy. We sinners can find a gathering 
place somewhere else perhaps the sexton will 
think the furnace-room the proper place for us 
and we'll take Christian hospitality and great- 
heartedness as our first subject for discussion." 
" You won't do anything of the kind," ex- 
claimed Squire Woodhouse, one of the old set- 
tlers who had joined himself to the Second 
Church to avoid being tormented about what 
some of the members of the First Church 
termed his rationalism. " You're going to meet 
with us, blow us up all you like, teach us any- 
thing you can, and make us better in any way 
you know how to. God Almighty's kingdom 
isn't any four-acre lot with a high stone wall 
and a whole string of warnings to trespassers ; 
his kingdom takes in all out-doors ; every man 
alive is his child, and got a right to come and 
go in his Father's house, even if he don't sit on 
the same style of chair or creep under the same 
kind of bedclothes that his brothers do. If he 



A LIBERAL MOVEMENT. 9 

don't like the meat, or bread, or dessert that 
somebody else is eating, the table's so full of 
other good things that he can't go hungry un- 
less he insists upon it. There isn't one of you 
but's got more religion and brains than any of 
the twelve apostles ever had ; but none of them 
were ever turned out of the Bible class, though 
one of them, who was a thief, was man enough 
to stay awav of his own accord, and voluntarily 
go to judgment." 

" Churches wouldn't be near so full if all 
thieves followed Judas's example," was the un- 
gracious remark with which Captain Maile re- 
ceived this handsome speech ; a hearty laugh 
took the sting out of the captain's insinuation, 
however. Meanwhile Mr. Buffle had torn a 
leaf out of a hymn-book, scrawled a form of 
agreement thereupon, and passed it around for 
signatures. When the paper reached Dr. 
Humbletop, that gentleman said : 

" Brethren, I sign this paper in the hope that 
we shall work together for the honor and glory 



io EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

of God ; but I distinctly avow and reserve the 
right to withdraw at any time, should such time 
come, when my conscience forbids me any 
longer to attend." 

Several others, among them Insurance Pres- 
ident Lottson and Mr. Stott, the well-to-do 
builder, announced the same reservation, but 
no one entirely declined to sign. Then Mr. 
Buffle moved the election of a teacher, and 
the choice fell upon Deacon Bates, a man of 
unabused conscience, pure life, extreme ortho- 
doxy, and an aimless curiosity (which he mis- 
took for thought) about things Biblical and 
spiritual. Then Mr. Buffle arose and said : 

" Mr. Chairman Mr. Teacher, I mean time 
is money in the church as well as in the world. 
It's only 12.30 ; Sunday-school won't be out 
until 1.30. I move we select a lesson, and go 
right to work." 

The motion was put and carried, and in a 
second Dr. Humbletop was upon his feet 

" I propose," said he, " that after the offering 



A LIBERAL MOVEMENT. II 

of a prayer an essential which seems to have 
been overlooked by our brethren so zealous in 
good works that we proceed to the considera- 
tion of the Epistle of Paul to the Romans. Let 
us sit at the feet of one, the latchet of whose 
shoes no other theologian was ever worthy 
to unloose, and let us there seek those truths 
which shall make us wise unto salvation. Let 
us make ourselves fully acquainted with God's 
plan for the redemption of sinful man." 

" I move as a substitute," said Mr. Alleman, 
" that we begin with the Sermon on the Mount, 
and learn from the Master instead of the ser- 



vant." 



The place was a church and the occasion was 
the study of the Scriptures. But the attendants 
were only human and they recognized the con- 
ditions necessary to a fight with many indica- 
tions of satisfaction ; faces lightened up, eyes 
rapidly increased in luster, and lips uncon- 
sciously parted in the manner natural to persons 
who are gradually abandoning themselves to the 



12 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

influence of an impending pleasure. Men sit- 
ting to the right, left, and front of the apparent 
contestants twisted their necks until their eyes 
commanded the scene ; while good old Major 
Brayme, who was rather deaf, and had got into 
a corner for his neuralgia's sake, scented the 
battle afar off and limped around to a front 
seat. 

" The question is on the amendment," said 
the leader, " unless some brother has still an- 
other amendment to offer." 

Nobody spoke ; as Captain Maile afterward 
explained, " 'twasn't anybody else's fight." Be- 
sides, Valley Rest was peopled by the race 
peculiar to all other portions of this terrestrial 
ball, and one of the instincts of that race, 
whether savage or civilized, is that it is far more 
pleasing to be a spectator than a participant in 
an altercation. 

" Mr. Leader," said Mr. Alleman after a mo- 
ment of silence, " in support of my amendment 
I wish to say that no one more enthusiastically 



A LIBERAL MOVEMENT. 13 

admires than I do the remarkable, almost 
unique, logical ability of the apostle ; but the 
very reason which prompted him to give forth 
that wonderful letter to the Romans is the one 
which I offer in opposition to our studying that 
same epistle. Paul was originally a shrewd 
man of the world, and his conversion did not 
deprive him of his common sense and tact. 
Writing to the church at Rome a church 
whose members, judging by the Roman mental 
constitution, must have been gained through 
appeals logical rather than emotional he met 
them upon their own ground, and taught them 
and grounded them in belief through those fac- 
ulties in them which were most easily reached, 
and which, more than any others, would retain 
the impressions formed upon them. Of all that 
Paul taught we profess to be convinced ; of what 
Christ taught we are not so well informed, for 
the reason that it is Paul, rather than Christ, 
who is preached from the pulpit. But here we 
are in a world and a state of society in which, 



14 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

for righteousness' sake, we are less helped by 
logically drawn dogma than by earnest injunc- 
tion and pure example. We do believe ; what 
we need is to learn to lead the new life which 
that belief implies ; we need to have asserted, 
explained, and impressed upon us the simple 
but comprehensive rules and gracious promises 
which Jesus enounced during his life. The 
Sermon on the Mount begins with the Beati- 
tudes ; which of us really believes in them as we 
do in Paul's argument to the Romans ? It con- 
tinues and concludes with a number of moral 
injunctions, all of which we practically reject, or 
at least neglect ; yet these bear directly on our 
daily intercourse with our fellow-men, and our 
daily acts of all sorts. Why, St. Paul himself 
apparently preached after this same model when 
he had to talk to men of the world whose intel- 
ligence was not confined to a single groove, for 
we read that when he preached talked to 
Felix, the governor, he reasoned of righteous- 
ness, temperance, and the judgment to come. 



A LIBERAL MOVEMENT. 1 5 

Therefore I move, for the good of those here 
assembled, and for the glory of God, that this 
class proceed to the study of the Sermon on 
the Mount." 

There was a perceptible rustle and an active 
interchange of winks and head-shakings as Mr. 
Alleman closed ; but a dead silence was restored 
as Dr. Humbletop slowly rose to his feet, cleared 
his throat, adjusted his newly-polished glasses, 
and raised his voice. 

" My dear friends," said he, " having been an 
humble but earnest follower of the Lord Jesus 
Christ for nearly half a century, I need not on 
this occasion enter into a defense of myself 
against any possible insinuation of lack of faith. 
Nor will any one doubt that I apprehend the 
great value of the Sermon on the Mount ; some 
of you will, perhaps, recall a series of sermons 
which I preached a few years ago upon the 
Beatitudes. But Jesus Christ was not merely a 
moral teacher ; his great work was to redeem 
the world from death by offering himself as a 



1 6 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

propitiation for their sins, and submitting him- 
self unto death, even the shameful death of the 
cross. His teachings were great, he spake 
as man never spake before, but all this is as 
naught compared with the great work which he 
finished upon Calvary. It is this that we need 
to study ; it is for this we should love and 
adore him. ' God so loved the world, that he 
gave his only-begotten Son, that whosoever 
believeth in him should not perish, but have 
eternal life.' " * 

" I should like to ask Brother Humbletop if 
personal salvation is the highest motive with 
which we should study the Bible ? " said Mr. 
Alleman. 

It was evident that the question was a poser 
to the good doctor ; the very convexity and 
luster of his glasses served only to make his 
eyes stare more aimlessly at nothing for a mo- 
ment or two. He recovered himself, however, 
and replied : 

" God, in his generosity, and doubtless in 



A LIBERAL MOVEMENT. I/ 

view of the needs of sinful humanity, has 
ordered that the salvation of mankind should 
have been the principal object of Christ's com- 
ing upon earth ; I am not here to criticise my 
Maker." 

" And you know that no one else is," re- 
marked Mr. Alleman, with not inexcusable 
acerbity. 

" Question ! " exclaimed several voices. The 
leader put the question, and the amendment of 
Mr. Alleman was adopted by a considerable 
majority. Again Dr. Humbletop got upon his 
feet. 

" My dear friends," said he, " I regret at this 
early hour to part from an association from 
which I had fondly hoped to derive spiritual 
benefit, but my sense of duty impels me to take 
such a step ; the vote of the class seems to in- 
dicate an estimate of Christ to which I should 
never dare to commit myself an estimate 
against which I must always protest. Person- 
ally, I hold you all in high esteem ; you shall al- 



1 8 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

ways be remembered by me at the throne of 
grace, but upon the prime essential of Christian 
fraternity we seem hopelessly at variance. In 
one way I doubt not that your deliberations 
will tend toward good, but that way is not the 
best way, and I must therefore regret it. I shall 
consider it my duty to take steps toward the 
organization of a class upon what I conceive to 
be a Christian basis, and in that class I shall al- 
ways be ready to heartily welcome any of you. 
Salvation through the atonement of Christ is 
the central truth of the Bible ; a body of students 
who examine the Word from any other stand- 
point may be perfectly sincere and in earnest, 
and they may constitute what may without un- 
kind meaning be called a Scripture Club, but 
they can never claim to be regarded as a Bible 
class, in the proper acceptation of the term." 

The doctor gathered his cloak, hat, and cane, 
and retired with a graceful but dignified bow ; 
the class rose to its feet in some confusion, and 
Squire Woodhouse exclaimed : 



A LIBERAL MOVEMENT. 19 

" Scripture Club, eh ? Well, it's a good name." 
" That's so," said Mr. Alleman ; " let's adopt 
it, and show the blessed old man that names 
can't change natures." 

A general assent was sounded ; not so noisy 
a one, perhaps, as that with which the Dutch 
patriots of three hundred years ago accepted 
the designation of " Beggars," cast at them by 
Spain, and destined to recoil upon those who 
bestowed it ; but the acclamation was neverthe- 
less more earnest and demonstrative than is 
common in churches, and it was perhaps well 
that in the midst of it the dismissal of the Sun- 
day-school compelled parents who were mem- 
bers of the " Club " to hurry out in search of 
their children. 



CHAPTER II. 

SOME SPIRITUAL DIFFERENCES. 

THE next meeting of the Scripture Club of 
Valley Rest was impatiently looked for- 
ward to by all the club members. Although 
there were at that time plenty of political theories 
to quarrel over, two or three fine projects for 
new lines of lake navigation, and at least a dozen 
for making of the neighboring city the greatest 
Western rival to New York, conversation on 
these subjects was only fitful on the boats 
which carried the business men of Valley Rest 
between their homes and the city. Before the 
second Sunday of the existence of the class, 
each member had in mind at least one religious 
topic upon which he wanted full, exhaustive, 
and decisive discussion; he also in his inner- 
most heart, and sometimes on his lips, had the 



20 



SOME SPIRITUAL DIFFERENCES. 21 

settled conviction that he was just the man 
to speak the decisive word, and thus readjust 
human thought to the newly-discovered require- 
ments of eternal truth. 

Nor was excitement on religious topics con- 
fined to the members of the club. Not a day 
of the week passed without bringing to Deacon 
Bates a new candidate for admission. First 
came Mr. Hopper, who took enthusiastic delight 
in whatever was new, whether in religion, poli- 
tics, medical theories, or popular smoking to- 
baccos. As Mr. Hopper was a rich man, good 
Deacon Bates hastily assured him that the class 
would be delighted to have him as a member, 
and Mr. Hopper graciously responded by offer- 
ing to read at the very first meeting a seven- 
teen-page paper, from a very heavy but com- 
paratively new quarterly, on " The True Loca- 
tion of the Holy Sepulchre." Then came Mr. 
Jodderel, who had once defrayed the entire cost 
of producing a bulky pamphlet, the motive of 
which was the probable final settlement of all 



22 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

departed spirits, in renewed bodies, on some 
one of the terrestrial globes which he believed 
had been in preparation from the foundation of 
the world. Mr. Jodderel more than hinted that 
he would like to see considerable attention 
given to this topic in the new class, and though 
good Leader Bates trembled at the thought, 
having heard the same subject discussed in sea- 
son and out of season ever since Mr. Jodderel 
had made the coming peerless city of the West 
his place of business, he was true to the senti- 
ment which had led to the formation of the 
class, and therefore gave Mr. Jodderel a hearty 
fraternal welcome. Then, like Nicodemus, 
there came by night, and from fear of the or- 
thodox, Brother Prymm, to whom the slightest 
letter of the law was of more importance than 
the whole of the spirit thereof. He had made 
the matter of joining the class a subject of 
special prayer, he said, and had made up his 
mind that if it were really the intention of the 
members to encourage free speech and honest- 



SOME SPIRITUAL DIFFERENCES. 23 

ly search for the actual truth regarding the will 
of God, it was his duty to join the class, and 
serve his blessed Master to the extent of his 
poor abilities. Mr. Maddle came next, and 
Leader Bates' heart gladdened to receive him, 
for Mr. Maddle was one of the most successful 
organizers in the State ; he had planned and 
executed at least two remarkably successful 
campaigns in the local political field, and had 
reorganized, out of nothing, more than one 
shapeless business enterprise so admirably that 
the backers thereof could not learn what they 
had expended, nor could the creditors discern 
what they themselves had received. With such 
a man behind him, Leader Bates rose superior 
to his own fears of the possible disintegration 
which the diversity of views of his fellow-mem- 
bers had seemed to make possible. And then, 
as if providentially sent to give the class the 
impress and protection of the highest order of 
mentality, came Dr. Fahrenglohz, Ph.D., Got- 
tingen, who had additional repute as being a 



24 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

good physician and a man who always paid his 
bills. All these were present at the opening- 
hour of the next meeting-, and with them came 
several people of the class which yields capital 
listeners, and proves the wondrous capacity of 
the human mind for absorbing information with- 
out ever being moved to lend any of it again 
to others. 

The meeting was opened with prayer. Dea- 
con Bates remarked prefatorily that such would 
be the proper thing in a class composed of 
adults, and then he looked around hesitatingly 
for the proper man to make the first formal 
committal of the class into the hands of the 
Lord ; but Squire Woodhouse saved him the 
trouble by springing to his feet and volunteer- 
ing to Heaven an address so concise that there 
remained nothing unsaid. Then Bibles were 
distributed, and opened at the fifth chapter of 
Matthew's Gospel, and every one looked un- 
speakably profound, though Mr. Hopper had 
the presence of mind to place his hand beneath 



SOME SPIRITUAL DIFFERENCES. 25 

his coat-tails and take hold of the review con- 
taining the paper on " The True Location of 
the Holy Sepulchre," so as to be ready in case 
occasion offered. 

" Let us begin with the beatitudes," said the 
leader. " ' Blessed are the poor in spirit, for 
theirs is the kingdom of heaven.' By the way, 
I would suggest that each member speaks in 
the order of his sitting. Mr. Lottson," continued 
Deacon Bates, addressing the insurance presi- 
dent, " whom do you suppose Jesus referred to 
as ' the poor in spirit ' ? " 

" Before answering that question," said Mr. 
Lottson, " I think attention should be called to 
a passage in the opening of the chapter. It is 
said that ' When he was set, his disciples came 
unto him. And he opened his mouth and 
taught them, saying/ etc. Now, before we try 
to understand this beautiful succession of bless- 
ings, we should realize whom they were spoken 
to to the disciples, who had left all and fol- 
lowed him, and therefore to a set of men to 



26 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

whom he could say things which it would be 
nonsensical for him to say to the common 
people and business men around him. The 
disciples were out of business, and lived on 
their friends it was right enough for them to do 
so under the circumstances, but for this very 
reason Jesus told them the things which nobody 
else could understand. This sermon was 
preached to self-forgetting preachers, not to 
men who had to make their living and take the 
world as they found it ; and I suppose the 
first beatitude meant to them just what it said. 
They were poor in spirit any man has to be, 
if he be willing to go around without a cent in 
his pocket but to pay them for it he gave them 
the kingdom of heaven, that is, the church of 
which Christ is prophet, priest, and king. It's 
the greatest charge in the world j all business 
enterprises are nothing in comparison with it ; 
but Jesus showed his divine nature by giving 
them this, for while they managed it splendidly, 
it's the only great affair in the world that a lot 



SOME SPIRITUAL DIFFERENCES. 2/ 

of poor-spirited men could manage without 
running it into the ground." 

" That depends upon what ' poor in spirit ' 
means," remarked Squire Woodhouse. " Presi- 
dent Lottson seems to think it's the same thing 
as mean-spirited, but if it is, I can tell him that 
there's more money for that kind of chaps in 
other businesses. Now I'm a farmer my prin- 
cipal crop is hay, and when my barn burned down 
last winter with eleven tons loose and forty odd 
tons pressed, and I went to the insur " 

" The members will please speak as called 
upon," said the leader, whose watchful ear im- 
agined it detected a personality in the immediate 
future of the Squire's address. Squire Wood- 
house subsided after a soft whisper to his right- 
hand neighbor, which caused that gentleman to 
notice that President Lottson's face was flushing 
a little, and his lips touching each other more 
firmly than usual. 

" It seems to me," said Mr. Radley, who was 
next called upon, " that the passage means just 



28 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

what it says. The kingdom of heaven means 
the place we all hope to get to some day, and 
the poor in spirit are the people who aren't 
touchy and don't put on airs. Christ was a 
man of this kind himself, and he knew by ex- 
perience what he was talking about." 

" Then how did he come to call a lot of 
good church members vipers ? " demanded 
Squire Woodhouse, before the leader could 
bring him to order. 

" Because they were vipers," answered Mr. 
Radley. " Being poor in spirit humble 
doesn't need to keep anybody from telling the 
truth. It's your /zz^-spirited chaps that do 
most of the lying in the world they do in 
business circles anyway." 

" Next," said Deacon Bates, and Captain 
Maile lifted up his voice. 

" Judging by the notions most people have 
of the kingdom of heaven," said he, " I don't 
think anybody but poor-spirited people can 
ever want to go there." 



SOME SPIRITUAL DIFFERENCES. 29 

Next in order came Mr. Jodderel, and, as he 
afterward told his wife, he breathed a small 
thank-offering to Heaven for preparing so per- 
fect an occasion for the presentation of his own 
theological pet. 

" I don't wonder," he said, " that my military 
friend turns up his nose at the home-made 
heaven of most people, but I want him to un- 
derstand that it was no such place that the 
Lord was talking about. What did he mean 
when he said, ' Come, ye blessed of my Father, 
and inherit the kingdom prepared for you from 
the foundation of the world ' ? What sensible 
man imagines that the kingdom he spoke of 
meant any such place as Christians talk about, 
or even the place where the Lord himself 
is ? It can't be the latter, for that wasn't pre- 
pared from the foundation of the world ; it 
existed long before, and didn't need any prep- 
aration. If he prepared the kingdom from the 
foundation of the world, and made the sun, 
moon, and stars when he founded the world 



30 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

a fact which I fully and implicitly believe be- 
cause it is recorded in the inspired Word the 
kingdom must be in some other sphere. And 
if, as astronomers say, and I have no reason to 
doubt, these spheres are worlds, a great deal 
like ours, we will have material bodies when we 
go to them." 

" And poor spirits ? " queried the insurance 
president. 

" Yes ! " exclaimed Mr. Jodderel fearlessly. 
" We can't go there without first dying here, 
and I never yet saw a man on his death-bed 
who thought a high spirit, or what men call a 
high spirit, had ever done him any good." 

President Lottson tried to swallow a sigh 
which was a little too quick for him ; he had 
once or twice imagined himself on his own 
death-bed, and had gained thereon some prac- 
tical intimations which he had made haste to 
forget when he got back to business. Mr. 
Prymm, who sat next to Mr. Jodderel, cleared 
his throat and said : 



SOME SPIRITUAL DIFFERENCES. 31 

" I think we owe Mr. Lottson our thanks for 
calling our attention to an important fact which 
has escaped general notice. The sermon was 
undoubtedly preached to the disciples, and 
should be considered accordingly ; a great 
many mistakes of interpretation are doubtless 
due to the habit of Christians in taking to them- 
selves every saying of the Lord and his proph- 
ets. I confess that the view advanced is so 
new a one to me that I am unable at present to 
express any opinion upon it, but I derive al- 
ready this benefit from it I learn anew how 
necessary it is to pay close attention to the let- 
ter of the Word." 

" Then," said young Mr. Waggett, who sat 
next Mr. Prymm, and who was principally re- 
markable for undeviating devotion to Number 
One, " then the passage has nothing to do with 
the great affair of the salvation of our own 
souls." 

" Supposing it hasn't," said Squire Wood- 
house, in spite of the warning glance of the 



32 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

leader, " Sunday isn't a business day, and if 
we want to talk about some of our best friends 
then there's no harm in doing so, nor any time 
wasted either." 

"Brother Scott," said Deacon Bates. The 
young lawyer, who had been exerting over 
himself a degree of control that was simply ter- 
rible, considering his temptations to interrup- 
tion, said : 

" May it please the class : There are some 
evident misunderstandings abroad. Mr. Lott- 
son's position is untenable, as the context of the 
same sermon proves ; no examination, accord- 
ing to the rules of evidence, can fail to prove 
that the sermon was addressed to the whole 
people. The passage cannot mean literally 
what it says, as Mr. Radley thinks, because lit- 
erally it is illogical, and had such been its in- 
tention it could never have been accepted by 
that consistent apologist for the integrity of the 
Scriptures, the Apostle Paul, whose mind was 
so marvelously under control of the legal in- 



SOME SPIRITUAL DIFFERENCES. 33 

stinct. Captain Maile's assumption as to the 
general idea of heaven is utterly without sup- 
port from fact ; for poverty of spirit is not the 
prevailing characteristic of those whose opin- 
ions of heaven are verbally made manifest. As 
for Mr. Jodderel's proposition, it involves the 
literal accuracy of the Book of Genesis, which 
many orthodox Christians are unprepared to 
admit. Mr. Prymm's notion that the sayings 
of Jesus may be wrongly taken by individuals, 
as applying to themselves, is not in accordance 
with logical deductions from other portions of 
Holy Writ. And how can Mr. Waggett sus- 
tain his position that there is any eternal truth 
that is not necessary to salvation ? " 

A soft chorus of long-drawn breaths followed 
the delivery of this speech, and then Squire 
Woodhouse said : 

" Well, now that you've knocked all the rest 
down, what are you going to do yourself? " 

" That," replied Lawyer Scott, evidently 
pleased by the compliment but puzzled by the 
3 



34 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

question, " cannot be answered as easily as it 
is asked, and I must beg the gentleman's in- 
dulgence until I have time to prepare my 
case." 

Mr. Buffle, founder of the class, was next in 
order, and admitted that he could not see that 
Jesus, being a clear-headed man, could ever 
have meant anything but what he said. He, 
Mr. Buffle, always said what he meant, no mat- 
ter whether he was talking to preachers, ship- 
pers, or the deck-hands on his own boats ; he 
had found that if a man said exactly what he 
meant, the stupidest of people could understand 
him, while smarter people needed no more. 
He would consider himself a fool if he talked 
over the head of any one who was listening to 
him, and of course Jesus couldn't have been 
foolish. He was very glad, though, to listen 
to the many different views that had been ad- 
vanced on the subject ; they proved just what 
he had always believed, that men would learn 
more about a thing by hearing all sides of it 



SOME SPIRITUAL DIFFERENCES. 36 

than he could from the smartest talker alive who 
knew only one side. He liked the liberality 
of the members of the class; it was what he 
called liberality, to listen to various views cour- 
teously, even if you couldn't accept them all or 
make them agree. 

The question had now reached Dr. Fahren- 
glohz, and the members, both liberal and nar- 
row, prepared for something terrible. They 
knew, in general, that he believed nothing that 
they themselves did ; how then could his own 
ideas be anything but dreadful? 

The doctor looked mildly from behind his 
very convex glasses, and said : 

" Jesus was a mystic. From the spiritual 
plane on which he lived it was impossible 
for him to descend. He could say only that 
which he believed. Pure-minded and wholly 
regardless of ordinary earthly interests, he could 
not be a utilitarian, in the vulgar acceptation of 
the word. What thought he, what thinks any 
philosopher, of how his theories may affect the 



36 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

world ? It is his duty to discover the truth, 
help or hinder whomsoever it may, and to 
speak it as he understands it, not in such frag- 
ments as other people may comprehend it. 
What did Buddha and Brahma ? They spoke, 
they gave forth that which originated with 
them." 

"And what did it all amount to?" asked 
Squire Woodhouse. " Business don't amount 
to a row of pins among their followers, accord- 
ing to the Missionary Herald, and virtue is 
worse off yet." 

The doctor smiled condescendingly. "'He 
that hath ears to hear, let him hear,' as your 
prophet says. Is virtue and good business 
always to be found with those who sit under 
the words of Jesus ? " 

" N-no," said the Squire, " and that's just 
what we're driving at. If the words are under- 
stood and followed men can't help being 
good and successful." 

"And so there is all the more need of care- 



SOME SPIRITUAL DIFFERENCES. 37 

ful, prayerful study of the words," remarked 
Mr. Prymm. 

There was general disappointment, among 
those who had yet to speak, at the lack of any 
startling heresy in the doctor's utterances. 
Builder Stott in particular had felt that he 
might have an opportunity of defending the 
faith which he so unhesitatingly accepted, at no 
matter what intellectual difficulties, by abusing 
some heterodox utterance of the doctor; but 
the doctor's statements had seemed to him to 
resemble either a sphere and a hollow one 
from which all projectiles would glance harm- 
lessly, or mere thin air, in which there was 
nothing to aim at. So he could do nothing 
but assert his own orthodoxy. 

" I believe everything that Jesus said was 
meant just as it was spoken," said he ; 
" whether what we call common sense has got 
anything to do with it or not, is none of our 
business. Of course we can't live up to it all 
we're born in sin and shapen in iniquity ; 



38 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

our hearts are deceitful above all things and 
desperately wicked but what we can't do, he 
did for us, by dying on the cross. We can 
never act according to his teachings we'd go 
to the poor-house or into our coffins as soon 
as we attempted it. If we could do it, there 
wouldn't have been any need of an atone- 
ment.' 1 

" Then the atonement is an excuse for 
rascality, is it ? " asked Captain Maile. The 
Captain's own house had been erected by 
Builder Stott, and many had been his com- 
plaints of features which had proved not in ac- 
cordance with the spirit of the contract. 

Leader Bates felt extremely uncomfortable ; 
he never had liked personalities, and hated 
them all the worse when they interfered with 
that heavenly feeling which was to him the 
principal object of all religious meetings. He 
made haste to call upon Mr. Alleman, and that 
gentleman replied : 

" Mr. Leader, there can be no doubt that 



SOME SPIRITUAL DIFFERENCES. 39 

this passage was spoken to living men, about 
living interests, and that it not only can be 
lived up to by the exercise of such qualities as 
men already have, but that it must be treated 
and respected as truth if men do not wish the 
disgrace and penalties of hypocrisy. Of what 
consequence is it to true righteousness if men 
will or will not reconcile scriptural injunctions 
with business desires? Bring business up to 
truth, not truth down to business, is the earthly 
application of Christ's teachings." 

" That," said Builder Stott, " may be all 
right in running a first-class academy, but you 
can't run the building business on any such 
basis." 

The hour for dismission was reached at that 
instant, with Mr. Hopper still nervously shaking 
the coat-tail pocket which contained the re- 
view with the article on the " True Location of 
the Holy Sepulchre." Two or three of the 
members departed, but the greater number 
stood about and discussed the discussion. 



40 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

" Well, everybody had a chance to speak his 
mind," said Mr. President Lottson. 

" That's so," said Mr. Buffle, founder of the 
class, rubbing his hands enthusiastically. " No- 
body was afraid of his neighbor's opinions." 

" There seemed a general disposition to view 
the subject from all points," remarked Mr. 
Prymm. 

" Not much regard paid to evidence," said 
young Lawyer Scott, " but still an evident will- 
ingness to open the case fairly." 

11 There was not a proper interest displayed 
in the future location of the soul," complained 
Mr. Jodderel ; " still the members acted like 
good listeners." 

*' There was a little too much talking back," 
said Mr. Radley ; " men should be more care- 
ful about treading on each other's corns. But 
there was a real, liberal spirit shown through- 
out, and that's what religious societies need." 

"Men shouldn't have corns, if they don't 
want them trodden on," said Captain Maile. 



SOME SPIRITUAL DIFFERENCES. 4! 

" I won't complain, though I never saw so 
little narrowness in so large a religious gather- 
ing.'' 

" I take great delight in recalling the confer- 
ence we have had," said Dr. Fahrenglohz. " I 
supposed, when I heard of this association, that 
it would not bear the test of differences of 
opinions, but I am grateful for the respect 
shown to me, and pleased at the courtesy dis- 
played toward others." 

Squire Woodhouse waited until Mr. Alleman 
disappeared, and then burst into a small group 
exclaiming : 

" Now, I like Alleman first rate all of my 
children go to his academy but I do wonder 
whether he could run a farm with those notions 
of his? I'm glad the class listened respectfully, 
though it showed that nobody was afraid that 
a little liberality would hurt any one." 



CHAPTER III. 

FREE SPEECH. 

THE members of the Scripture Club did 
not put off their holy interest with their 
Sunday garments, as people of the world do 
with most things religious. When the little 
steamboat Oakleaf started on her Monday 
morning trip for the city, the members of the 
Scripture Club might be identified by their 
neglect of the morning papers and their ten- 
dency to gather in small knots and engage in 
earnest conversation. In a corner behind the 
paddle-box, securely screened from wind and 
sun, sat Mr. Jodderel and Mr. Prymm, the latter 
adoring with much solemn verbosity the sacred 
word, and the former piling text upon text to de- 
monstrate the final removal of all the righteous 

to a new state of material existence in a better 

42 



FREE SPEECH. 43 

ordered planet. In the one rocking-chair of 
the cabin sat insurance President Lottson, 
praising to Mr. Hopper, who leaned obse- 
quiously upon the back of the chair and oc- 
casionally hopped vivaciously around it, the 
self-disregard of the disciples, and the evident 
inability of anyone within sight to follow their 
example. The prudent Waggett was interview- 
ing Dr. Fahrenglotz, who was going to attend 
the meeting of a sort of Theosophic Society, 
composed almost entirely of Germans, and was 
endeavoring to learn what points there might 
be in the Doctor's belief which would make a 
man wiser unto salvation, while Captain Maile 
stood by, a critical listener, and distributed 
pitying glances between the two. Well for- 
ward, but to the rear of the general crowd, 
stood Deacon Bates in an attitude which might 
have seemed conservative were it not mani- 
festly helpless, Mr. Buffle with the smile pecu- 
liar to the successful business man, Lawyer 
Scott, with the air of a man who had so much 



44 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

to say that time could not possibly suffice in 
which to tell it all, Squire Woodhouse, who 
was in search of a good market for hay, Princi- 
pal Alleman, who was in chase of an overdue 
shipment of text-books, and Mr. Radley, who 
with indifferent success was filling the self- 
assigned roll of moderator of the little assem- 
blage. 

" Nothing settled by the meeting ? " said Mr. 
Buffle, echoing a despondent suggestion by 
Deacon Bates. "Of course not. You don't 
suppose that what theologians have been squab- 
bling over for two thousand years can be set- 
tled in a day, do you ? We made a beginning 
and that's a good half of anything. Why, I and 
every other man that builds boats have been 
hard at work for years, looking for the best 
model, and we haven't settled the question yet. 
We're in earnest about it we can't help but 
be, for there's money in it, and while we're 
waiting we do the next best thing we use the 
best ones we know about.' 1 



FREE SPEECH. 4 

" Don't you think you'd get at the model 
sooner, if some of you weren't pig-headed 
about your own, and too fond of abusing each 
other's ? " asked Mr. Radley. 

" Certainly," admitted Mr. Buffle, " and that's 
why I wanted us to get up a Bible-class like 
the one we have. If everybody will try to 
see what's good in his neighbors theories and 
what's bad in his own, his fortune his relig- 
ion, I mean is a sure thing. Fiddling on one 
string always makes a thin sort of a tune." 

" There were a good many small tunes be- 
gun yesterday, then," observed Squire Wood- 
house. 

" Well," said Mr. Buffle, " I thought some- 
thing of the kind, myself, but a man can't break 
an old habit to pieces all at once. Things will 
be different before long, though." 

" There is no reason why they shouldn't," 
said Principal Alleman, " excepting one reason 
that's stronger than any other. You can't get 
to the bottom of any of the sayings of Christ, 



46 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

the Prophets or the Apostles without finding 
that they mean, Do Right. And when you reach 
that point, what is in the man and not what is 
in the book comes into play, or, rather, it al- 
ways should but seldom does." 

" I suppose that's so," said Mr. BufHe, soberly. 

" In and of ourselves we can do nothing," 
remarked Deacon Bates. 

" It's very odd, then, that we should have 
been told to do so much," replied Principal 
Alleman. 

" It was to teach us our dependence upon a 
higher power," said Deacon Bates, with more 
than his usual energy. 

" Are we only to be taught, and never to 
learn, then ? " asked Principal Alleman. " Some 
of my pupils seem to think so, but those who 
depend least upon the teacher and act most 
fully up to what they have been taught are the 
ones I call my best scholars." 

Deacon Bates's lower lip pushed up its 
neighbor; in the school-room, the Principal's 



FREE SPEECH. 47 

theory might apply, but in religion it was dif- 
ferent, or he (Deacon Bates) had always been 
mistaken, and this possibility was not to be 
thought of for an instant. Fortunately for his 
peace of mind, the boat touched her city dock 
just then, and from that hour until five in the 
afternoon, when he left his store for the boat, 
religious theories absented themselves entirely 
from Deacon Bates's mind. 

The last meeting of the class was still the 
most popular subject of conversation among 
the members, however, and interest of such a 
degree could not help be contagious. Other 
residents of Valley Rest, overhearing some of 
the chats between the members, expressed a de- 
sire to listen to the discussions of the class, and 
to all was extended a hearty welcome, without 
regard to race, color, or previous condition of 
religious servitude, and all were invited to be 
doers as well as hearers. So at the next session 
appeared ex-Judge Cottaway, who had written 
a book and was a vestryman of St. Amos Par- 



48 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

ish, Broker Whilcher, who worshipped with the 
Unitarians but found them rather narrow, and 
Broker Whilcher's bookkeeper, who read Her- 
bert Spencer, and could not tell what he him- 
self believed, even if to escape the penalty of 
death. Various motives brought men from 
other churches, including even one from Father 
McGarry's flock, and all of them were assured 
that they might say whatever they chose, pro- 
vided only that they believed it. 

" Shall we continue our consideration of last 
Sunday's lesson ? " asked Deacon Bates, after 
the opening prayer had been offered. " We 
have some new members, and should therefore 
have some additional views to consider." 

" Let's hear everybody," said Captain Maile. 
" If we talk as long about this verse as we'll 
have to talk before we reach any agreement, 
we'll all die before we can reach the square up- 
and-down verses that are further along in this 



same sermon." 



" If the class has no objection to offer, we 



FREE SPEECH. 49 

will continue our study of the third verse of the 
fifth chapter of Matthew, and those who spoke 
on last Sunday will allow the newer members 
and others an opportunity to make their views 
known." As Deacon Bates spoke, his eye 
rested warningly on Mr. Jodderel. 

" I think," said Mr. Jodderel, " that the new 
members ought to know what ideas have al- 
ready been presented, so as to throw any new 
light upon them, if they can. The nature of 
the kingdom of heaven, now, is the most 
important question suggested by the lesson, 
and " 

" It won't be of the slightest consequence to 
anyone," interrupted Principal Alleman, " un- 
less they first comply with the condition which 
the verse imposes upon those who want to 
reach the kingdom." 

" I wouldn't be too sure of that," remarked 
President Lottson, " while Jesus said that the 
poor in spirit should have the kingdom of 
heaven, lie didn't say that no one else should 



OO EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

share it with them. What is written doesn't 
always express all that is meant." 

"It doesn't in insurance policies, anyhow," 
said Squire Woodhouse, "when my barn 
burned " 

" Time is precious, my brethren," said Dea- 
con Bates hastily, scenting a personality, " I 
will therefore ask Judge Cottaway for his opin- 
ion of the passage." 

" I think," said the Judge, with that impres- 
sive cough which is the rightful indulgence of a 
man who has written a volume on the rules of 
evidence, " that * poor in spirit ' undoubtedly 
means unassuming, rightly satisfied with what 
is their due, mindful of the fact that human 
nature is so imperfect that whatever a man 
obtains is probably more than he deserves. 
They can not be the meek, for special allusion 
is made to the meek in this same group of 
specially designated persons. Neither can it 
refer to people who are usually called poor- 
spirited persons, to wit, those who are too de- 



FREE SPEECH. 5 1 

void of what is commonly designated as spirit, 
for these are properly classified as peace-makers, 
and have a similar though not identical bkss- 
ing promised to them." 

" The class owes its thanks to the Judge for 
his clear definition of the term ' poor in spirit/ ' 
said Mr. Jodderel, " and if he can be equally 
distinct upon the expression ' kingdom of heav- 
en ' he will put an end to a great deal of sense- 
less blundering." 

" I know of but one definition," said the 
Judge, " heaven is the abode of God and the 
angels, and of those who are finally saved." 

" Ah, but where is it ? that's the question 
this class wants answered," said Mr. Jodderel, 
twisting his body and craning his head for- 
ward as he awaited the answer. 

" Really," said the Judge, " you must excuse 
me. I don't know where it is, and I can't see 
that study as to its locality can throw any light 
upon the lesson." 

This opinion, delivered by an ex-Judge, who 



52 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

had written a book on rules of evidence, 
would have quieted almost anyone else, and 
the members' faces expressed a sense of relief 
as they thought that Mr. Jodderel also would 
be quieted. But Mr. Jodderel was not one of 
the faint-hearted, and in his opinion faint-heart- 
edness and quietness were one and the same 
thing. 

" No light upon the lesson ? " echoed Mr. 
Jodderel. " Why, what is the Bible for, if not 
to inform us of our destiny ? What is this 
world but a place of preparation for another ? 
And how can we prepare ourselves unless we 
know what our future place and duty is to be ? " 

" Next!" exclaimed Deacon Bates with more 
than his usual energy, and Mr. Jodderel sank 
back into his chair and talked angrily with 
every feature but his mouth, and with his 
whole body besides. " Mr. Whilcher has some 
new ideas to present, no doubt," continued the 
leader, bracing himself somewhat firmly in his 
chair, for the Deacon naturally expected an 



FREE SPEECH. 3 

assault from a man of Mr. Whilcher's peculiar 
views. 

" Poverty of spirit seems to me to be old 
English for modesty," said Mr. Whilcher, 
" We know very little, comparatively, of the 
great designs of God, and about as little of the 
intentions of our fellow-men, so we should be 
very careful how we question our maker or 
criticise our neighbors. No human being 
would appreciate divine perfection if he saw it ; 
no man can give his fellow-men full credit for 
what they would do, if they were angels, and 
are sorry because they can't do. I think the 
passage means that only by that modesty, that 
self-repression, by which alone a man can ac- 
cept the inevitable as decreed by God, and 
forbear that fault-finding which comes fully as 
easy as breathing, can a man be fitted for the 
companionship of the loving company which 
awaits us all in the next world." 

" Whereabouts ? " asked Mr. Jodderel. 

Half-a-dozen members filibustered at once, 



54 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

and Mr. Jodderel was temporarily suppressed, 
after which Squire Woodhouse remarked : 

" Well, now, that sounds first rate I never 
knew before that Unitarians had such good 
religion in them no harm meant, you know, 
Whilcher." 

" Now let us hear from Mr. Bungfloat," said 
Deacon Bates. 

Mr. Bungfloat, bookkeeper to Mr. Whilcher, 
hopelessly explored his memory for something 
from Herbert Spencer that would bear upon 
the subject, but finding nothing at hand, he 
quoted some expressions from John Stuart 
Mills' essay on " Nature," and was hopelessly 
demoralized when he realized that they did not 
bear in the remotest manner upon the topic 
under consideration. Then Deacon Bates an- 
nounced that the subject was open for general 
remark and comment. Mr. Jodderel was upon 
his feet in an instant, though the class has no 
rule compelling the members to rise while 
speaking. 



FREE SPEECH. 55 

" Mr. Leader," said he, " everybody has 
spoken, but nobody has settled the main ques- 
tion, which is, where is the 'kingdom of heaven?' 
Everybody knows who the poor in spirit are ; 
any one who didn't know when we began has 
now a lot of first class opinions to choose from. 
But where and what is heaven that is what 
we want to know." 

A subdued but general groan indicated the 
possibility that Mr. Jodderel was mistaken as 
to the desires of the class. Meanwhile, young 
Mr. Banty, who had been to Europe, and 
listened to much theological debate in cafes 
and beer-gardens, remarked. 

"I'm not a member of this respected body, 
but I seem to be included in the chairman's 
invitation. I profess to be a man of the world 
I've been around a good deal and I never 
could see that the poor in spirit amounted to a 
row of pins. If they're fit for heaven they 
ought to be fit for something on this side of 
that undiscovered locality." 



56 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

" Discovered millions upon millions of times, 
bless the Lord," interrupted Squire Wood- 
house. 

" Well, the discoverers sent no word back, at 
any rate," said young Mr. Banty, " so there's 
one view which I think ought to be consid- 
ered ; isn't it possible that Jesus was mis- 
taken?" 

Mr. Prymm turned pale and Deacon Bates 
shivered violently, while a low hum and a gen- 
eral shaking of heads showed the unpopularity 
of young Mr. Banty 's idea. 

"The class cannot entertain such a theory 
for an instant," answered Deacon Bates, as 
soon as he could recover his breath, " though 
it encourages the freest expression of opin- 
ion." 

" Oh ! " remarked Mr. Banty, with a derisive 
smile. The tone in which this interjection was 
delivered put the class upon its spirit at 
once. 

" Our leader means exactly what he says," 



FREE SPEECH. / 

said Mr. Jodderel ; " any honest expression of 
opinion is welcome here." 

" If such were not the case," said Mr. Prymm, 
" a rival class would not have been formed." 

" And none of us would have learned how 
many sides there are to a great question," said 
Mr. Buffle. 

" Larger liberty wouldn't be possible," said 
Builder Stott. " Why, I've just had to shud- 
der once in awhile, but the speakers meant 
what they said, and I rejoiced that there was 
somewhere where they could say it." 

"I've said everything I've wanted to," re- 
marked Squire Woodhouse. 

" That's so," exclaimed insurance President 
Lottson. 

" I havn't seen any man put down," testified 
Captain Maile, " and I don't yet understand 
what to make of it." 

" Nobody could ask a fairer show," declared 
Mr. Radley. 

" The utmost courtesy has been displayed 



58 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

toward me," said Dr. Fahrenglotz, " although I 
am conscious my views are somewhat at vari- 
ance with those of others." 

" The nature of proof has not been as clearly 
understood as it should have been," said young 
Lawyer Scott ; " but no one has lacked oppor- 
tunity to express his sentiments." 

" So far from fault being found with the free- 
dom of speech," said Mr. Alleman, " the senti- 
ment of the class is, I think, that the expression 
of additional individual impressions would have 
been cordially welcomed, as they will also here- 
after be." 

Young Mr. Banty felt himself to be utterly 
annihilated, and the pillars of the class looked 
more stable and enduring than ever, and felt 
greatly relieved when the session ended, and 
they could congratulate each other on the glo- 
rious spirit of liberty which had marked their 
collective deliberations. And when Squire 
Woodhouse dashed impetuously from the room, 



FREE SPEECH. 69 

and returned to report that Dr. Humbletop's 
class consisted of one solitary pupil, several of 
the members unconsciously indulged in some 
hearty hand-shaking. 



CHAPTER IV. 

A SOLEMN HOUR COMPLETELY SPOILED. 

THE Scripture Club of Valley Rest, on the 
fourth day of its assembling, found itself 
a fixed and famous institution. Some of the 
members had at first regretted that no one of 
the smaller rooms in the church edifice was un- 
occupied at the hour of session ; but this regret 
was soon abandoned, for the reason that neither 
the pastor's study nor the regular Bible class- 
room, had either been available at the noon- 
day hour, would have been large enough to 
accommodate the class and its visitors. The 
main audience-room was the only one which 
was adequate to the requirements of the class. 
When the benediction was pronounced after 
the morning sermon, a large portion of the 
congregation remained, and, instead of chatting 

60 



A SOLEMN HOUR COMPLETELY SPOILED. 6 1 

leisurely with the occupants of neighboring 
pews and preventing the exit of unsociable 
people, they hurried to the seats nearest the 
corner occupied by the class. Even then, those 
who came last were occasionally compelled to 
exclaim " Louder!" for the attendants of the 
Second Church did not compose the entire body 
of hearers. Members of the five other churches 
in the town, though loath to depart from their 
denominational associations and pride so far as 
to worship elsewhere, were not only without 
scruples against listening to an informal body 
like the Scripture Club, but hurried from their 
own places of worship to the Second Church, 
and some of them were suspected even of stay- 
ing away from their own services in order to 
reach the Scripture Club in time to secure good 
seats. 

The effect of all this upon the Club was 
stimulating in high degree. Its first effect was 
to decrease whatever tendency to personality 
existed; whatever might be the week-day 



62 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

opinions of the members about each other, on 
Sunday every one tacitly agreed to the appli- 
cation of the Satanic rule that religion is reli- 
gion, and business is business. Some special 
effort was necessary to bring Squire Wood- 
house to forget, for an hour in the week, his 
burned barn and the action of President Lott- 
son's insurance company ; but finally the 
Squire's pride closed his lips upon this tender 
subject. Members, who before had possessed 
no religious ideas excepting those they had 
adopted at second-hand, now began to think for 
themselves, and being men of natural wits well 
sharpened by business experience, they speedily 
developed theories of their own, and strength- 
ened their own pet positions. The few religious 
books of reference in the village library many 
of them having once been gladly given to the 
library by the very men who now sought 
them were in demand at early morn and dewy 
eve, pastors' libraries were ransacked, and some 
members even consulted booksellers, and pur- 



A SOLEMN HOUR COMPLETELY SPOILED. 63 

chased works bearing upon their own special 
lines of thought and belief. Respect for the 
ideas of others did not necessarily imply as- 
sent, so discussion was frequent and animated. 
Champions of the faith as delivered unto 
themselves were numerous, and assailants of 
the truth as held by the orthodox were in suf- 
ficient numbers to keep their antagonists from 
lapsing into a condition of mere assertion. And 
over and around everything, like a glorious 
halo, was the assurance, always prominent, that 
free speech would not only be welcomed, but 
that the lack of it, from any motive of fear or 
conservatism, would greatly be regretted by 
every member. 

The discussion of the first beatitude consumed 
the time of four entire sessions, and during all 
these days it was in vain that Mr. Hopper car- 
ried the review containing the paper on " The 
True Location of the Holy Sepulchre." When, 
on the fifth day, Deacon Bates asked whether 
any other members had anything to say on the 



64 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

subject under consideration, Captain Maile 
made answer : 

" Call it a drawn fight, and give it up at that ; 
if any man here had been whipped, he wouldn't 
know it." 

" Oh, come, come ! " said Squire Woodhouse, 
" I'll join issue with you on that. / want to 
know what * poor in spirit ' means, and have a 
share in the kingdom of heaven " 

" But you don't want to know where or what 
the kingdom is," interrupted Mr. Jodderel. 

" Yes, I do ; but I want first to know what 
poor in spirit means. I feel pretty sure about it 
now, but 

" That's it, exactly," said Captain Maile. 
"But but you don't want to be anything that 
interferes with business. Give us something 
easier, Mr. Leader." 

There were some indignant whispers of dis- 
sent, but none of them were audible enough to 
attract the attention of the class, and Deacon 
Bates read the next verse. 



A SOLEMN HOUR COMPLETELY SPOILED. 65 

" Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall 
be comforted," read Deacon Bates. " Brother 
Prymm, will you open the discussion of this 
beatitude ? " 

" There is none other more precious to the 
earthly nature," said Mr. Prymm, " and yet the 
passage proves the comprehensiveness peculiar 
to inspired words. Sin and perplexity are the 
lot of all mortals, and they bring trouble with 
them ; but the single sorrow which raises man 
up to God, and brings God down to man, is 
mourning. It may be done from sinful causes 
upon earth but whatever the cause, the act 
itself shoO us how near God is to us, and what 
are his sentiments usward. He knows from 
the greatness and purity of his own nature how 
intense this sentiment may be, and his sympa- 
thy shows itself so tenderly in no other way as 
by this promise, that he will come to his chil- 
dren and comfort them when they are in sor- 
row. What an evidence of the need of a God 
does this promise afford ! Where else can we 
5 



66 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

turn for true comfort when in trouble ? Earthly 
friends lack that knowledge of us from which 
alone true sympathy can come ; the pleasure of 
the flesh can give us nothing better than tem- 
porary forgetfulness ; but the divine sympathy is 
perfect in its knowledge, timely and appropriate 
in its expression, and incalculable in its force 
and endurance." 

" I am glad to offer my weak testimony in 
support of the remarks of Brother Prymm," said 
Builder Stott, who came next in the order of 
rotation. " I have had my sad experiences in 
this world, all of you have had yours, I sup- 
pose, but it seems to me that mine have been 
peculiar. I've trusted men and been swindled 
by them. I've been abused for things that I 
never thought of doing. I've lost dear ones 
that left places that have never been filled and 
never can be, and I have found no one whose 
words could be more than a mockery one that 
wasn't intended, of course, but that hurt just as 
badly as if it had. It has been only when on 



A SOLEMN HOUR COMPLETELY SPOILED. 67 

my knees, or praying silently as I walked the 
street, that I found a sympathizing friend. 
There can be no doubt in me about what that 
passage means I know all about it by blessed 
experience." 

" So do I," said Mr. Buffle. " I've been what 
men call fortunate in this world's affairs, but if 
any one here thinks that money can buy ex- 
emption from misery, I want to tell him that 
he's greatly mistaken. I lost a child two or 
three years ago some of you remember her ; 
I'd have changed places with the cheapest work- 
man in my shipyard yes, the most miserable 
beggar in the street if by doing so I could 
have brought her back again. But money 
couldn't do it, and, as our friend Stott has just 
remarked, the best of earthly friends couldn't 
take the sting away. I can't say that God's 
comfort came just when I most wanted it, but 
God is good and wise ; he sent it when he 
thought best, and it was full of blessing when it 
came. It doesn't heal wounds to be comforted 



68 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

by Heaven the wounds remain as tender as 
ever ; but the pain and the feeling of hopeless- 
ness depart, and a man is made to feel like the 
wounded soldier, or the wrecked, starved sailor 
when help comes he knows he has a friend to 
lean upon." 

Mr. Buffle felt for his handkerchief and ap- 
plied it to his eyes ; an operation which, in spite 
of his great-heartedness, he seldom had occa- 
sion to perform in public : meanwhile Broker 
Whilcher said : 

" I don't agree with every one here, as most 
of you know ; but the beautiful promise which 
forms the subject of our lesson to-day has been 
fulfilled to me. I can't explain how, but I pro- 
fess to be too much of a man to deny what I 
learn by experience, even when I can't ascertain 
who my teacher is. My own great ups and 
downs of life have been principally social, and, 
as has been remarked by others, they are the 
hardest of any to bear. And somehow I wish 
I could learn how I have been helped, soothed, 



A SOLEMN HOUR COMPLETELY SPOILED. 69 

sustained, whenever I could abandon myself to 
the influence of whatever higher power it is 
that looks to the hearts of men and sees that 
they are not entirely crushed." 

11 The older a man grows in years and expe- 
rience," said Judge Cottaway, without his official 
cough, " the greater his experience of sorrow. 
The exercise of wisdom may prevent some 
troubles that carelessness and ignorance may 
induce, but even then there is more of misery 
in life than any human influences can avert. I 
believe, after much deliberation upon the evi- 
dence adduced from the affairs of men, that the 
Comforter is also the one who afflicts in many 
cases ; but so certain am I of his wisdom and 
goodness that I would never avert his chas- 
tening hand. The cry of Christ in the garden, 
1 O, my Father, if it be possible, let this cup 
pass from me : nevertheless not as I will, but as 
thou wilt/ should be the sentiment of every one 
that is in affliction. That more bitter cry that 
was sounded from the Cross may also be, with- 



7O EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

out sin, re-echoed by the human soul in trou- 
ble ; but every one learns, by blessed experience, 
that the soul is never forsaken, and that our 
sorrows are known to Heaven better than they 
are to ourselves." 

Mr. Jodderel sat next, and Squire Wood- 
house whispered to his nearest neighbor : 

"Too bad; he'll bring in the kingdom of 
heaven and pit it against the Ring." But to 
the astonishment of every one, Mr. Jodderel 
said only : 

" No one knows more of this blessed Com- 
forter than I. My childish days were heav^y 
clouded ; I was abused in youth ; I am misun- 
derstood now ; I have lost dear ones ; a long 
procession has preceded me to the grave, each 
member of it leaving my heart more lonely than 
before, and the time has come when I am too 
old to search for new friends and dear ones. 
But upon my knees, or as I commune with him 
upon my bed in the night season, or when I 
read his precious promises given by word of 



A SOLEMN HOUR COMPLETELY SPOILED. 7 1 

mouth or through his holy prophets, I find con- 
solation and hope and cheer, and forget that 
I am a lonely old man in an unsympathetic 
world." 

" Captain Maile ? " said Leader Bates, and 
the ex- warrior responded : 

" Everything I have heard this morning 
agrees with my own experience, and no matter 
what doubters may say and hypocrites may 
help them to make people believe, I can 
never forget the special blessings I have re- 
ceived in affliction, and when I have least ex- 
pected them." 

Squire Woodhouse sat next to Captain Maile, 
and joined in the general acknowledgment by 
saying : 

" You all know me, my friends ; you know 
I've often had a pretty hard row to hoe, for 
often it's been in a shape that hoeing couldn't 
help. But when the worst has come, and I 
couldn't do anything but stand still and endure 
it ; when I couldn't shake it off, or forget it, or 



72 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

improve it any way, there came in just when I 
couldn't expect it, or see how it could happen 
even with God managing it ; when every one I 
leaned on failed me, and I had to shut myself 
up in my own miserable heart then there came 
a visitor that made himself at home, helped 
me, changed me, made a new man of me, and 
showed me that the worst chance of man is the 
best one for God blessings on his holy name 
forever." 

Then Dr. Fahrenglotz said : 

" For myself, I have no family ties. I never 
knew my parents, for they entered into the un- 
knowable while I was yet a babe ; I have had 
neither brother nor sister, but I have had friends, 
and they have passed away, leaving my heart as 
empty as if it had never contained any other 
denizen. I have felt the last pulsation of the 
heart-dealings of many of you, and have watched 
you afterward with a solicitude which it might 
have seemed officious for me to have expressed. 
And to myself and to others I have known true, 



A SOLEMN HOUR COMPLETELY SPOILED. 73 

mysterious comfort to come, I know not from 
where ; the great outer, the intangible envelope 
of the human heart, is hidden from my sight 
and thought ; but from it I know there 
comes a subtle mystery whose influence tran- 
scends that of mortals, and which influence is 
tender, soothing, and lasting an influence 
which I cannot characterize more aptly than 
to say that it must come from some one or 
some principle of nature akin to that of Him 
whom most religious bodies denominate The 
Great Physician." 

" Excuse me, gentlemen," said young Mr. 
Banty, who had come in late, and had, sorely 
against his will, been compelled to occupy a 
seat among those whom he called " the Saints ; " 
" Excuse me ; I didn't come in to say anything 
to-day, but, things going as they are, I can't be 
quiet. I went abroad a year ago ; most of you 
know why. There was a lady in the question. 
She died ; I suppose it was best for her, for I 
didn't, in the slightest degree, begin to be fit 



74 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

for her, but her death didn't hurt me any the 
less. I haven't, since then, been as good a man 
as I should have been. I don't mind saying 
that the ways in which I've tried to forget my 
trouble haven't been such as have done me any 
good. But as everybody else has opened his 
heart to-day, I wouldn't be a bit of a man if I 
kept mine shut. I want to say that when I 
have a quiet hour, and get to thinking about 
that girl, there's something happens that I don't 
understand, but I'm very thankful for. I got 
to be a great deal less despairing, though, at the 
same time, I think a great deal more tenderly 
about her. I lose my ugliness at losing her ; I 
see how much better it was for her / I see how 
things had better go as they should than as 1 
want them, and I come out of that time less 
willing to go on a spree, less anxious to see the 
boys, and more anxious to go on thinking than 
to do anything else." 

The order of rotation demanded that the next 



A SOLEMN HOUR COMPLETELY SPOILED. 75 

speaker should be Mr. Alleman, and that gentle- 
man remarked : 

" I am heartily glad to see that there is one 
ground upon which all of us can meet. Those of 
you who know me know what frequent occasion 
I have had to learn all that you have learned of 
the unspeakable power of a comforting God. I 
have instinctively passed the greater portion of 
my life in my affections, for I know of no other 
sentiment which is so all-comprehensive ; and 
through these I have found daily new causes 
for mourning. We are informed by Jesus that 
the greatest of all commandments is that enjoin- 
ing love toward God, and that the second is like 
unto it, ' Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thy- 
self.' To try to fulfill this command is to have 
constant incentives to mournfulness. Every 
day I have them, from some cause heretofore 
unexpected, and the causes involve so many 
other people in troubles, which might be 
avoided, and for which I can blame only myself, 
that but for the presence of the Comforter I 



76 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

would be driven to despair or madness. What 
a tremendous responsibility rests upon us, my 
friends, in this our greatest relation to humanity, 
and how impossible it would be to endure it 
unless aided by a power greater than our own. 
I cannot, by any words, express my satisfaction 
at hearing so many men, and, in other religious 
matters, men of such differing views, testify to 
the unfailing promptness of the Great Sympa- 
thizer. And I should be glad to hear a wider 
expression of experiences, and assure myself 
that, in troubles outside the range purely per- 
sonal, my fellow-beings enjoy the comfort that 
I do. I am confident that the recital of such 
experiences would strengthen every one for 
greater works of humanity and love." 

There was a dead silence for several minutes, 
and the leader finally relieved the uncomfortable 
sensation of the members by asking : 

" Has any one any other remarks to offer?" 

No one responded. 

"The next lesson, which we will hardly have 



A SOLEMN HOUR COMPLETELY SPOILED. 77 

time to begin to-day, will be upon the third 
beatitude/' said Deacon Bates. " The class 
may consider itself dismissed, I suppose." 

" Now, wasrii that just like Alleman ? " asked 
Squire Woodhouse of Captain Maile. " We 
were having the most heavenly time I ever did 
know inside of a church, and he utterly ruined 



it." 



" The rest of you didn't act a bit as if you'd 
ruined yourselves, did you ? " asked the Cap- 
tain, in reply. 

"Why, how ? " asked the Squire. 

" Eyes have they, but they see not," answered 
the Captain, starting abruptly for his carriage. 



CHAPTER V. 

FAMILIAR SOUNDS. 

THE members of the club spent a whole 
week in trying to recover from the bad 
effects of Mr. Alleman's peculiar and untimely 
harangue, and even then they did not succeed. 
" We were getting into such an unusual, such 
a heavenly state of mind," explained Mr. Hop- 
per, " and the Lord knows that heavenly states 
of mind are scarce enough anywhere under the 
best of circumstances. We were forgetting all 
the tricks, the games that had been come upon 
us in the discussion of other points on which 
the brethren had made up their minds, and 
picked out their trees to hide behind ; and we 
were having just the happy, quiet, sympathetic 
time which a man knows how to appreciate 
when he's knocked about the world for a little 



FAMILIAR SOUNDS. 79 

while, when all of a sudden Alleman must 
come in, and spring some of his peculiar notions 
upon us. I don't see why the Lord lets such 
men torment the world about religious affairs. 
They're good enough in every other way." 

Other members of the class wondered also ; 
and when, on the following Sunday, Deacon 
Bates asked if any one else had any remarks to 
make on the late lesson, nobody answered. So 
the leader read : 

" ' Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit 
the earth.' Judge Cottaway" the Deacon had 
skillfully inveigled the Judge into a front seat 
before the discussion began, so as to have a 
strong and respectable opening "we would be 
glad to learn your views of this passage." 

" I take it to mean," answered the Judge, 
" that meekness is a virtue so highly esteemed 
by the Almighty, that he offers, as an incentive 
to its cultivation, the most highly valued of 
earthly inducements. Meekness seems to be 
the antithesis, the exact opposite of strife, and 



8o EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

so much of strife is so causeless and harmful, 
yet so attractive to the ordinary mind, that those 
who indulge in it are by this passage warned by 
implication. Meekness is not a virtue of such 
greatness as poverty of spirit, as may be in- 
ferred from the smaller reward promised to those' 
who practice it, and 

"I want to correct the gentleman right 
there/' exclaimed Mr. Jodderel. " What earth 
are they to inherit ? This earth ? Why, every- 
body laughs at that notion. A man's got to 
fight awfully hard to get anything in this world, 
and harder yet to keep whatever he gets. The 
path of meekness leads but to the poor-house. 
The earth alluded to evidently means the new 
earth, which, in the Revelation, John beheld, in 
connection with the new heaven. That new 
earth appeared after the destruction of the old 
one ; and for what could it have appeared but 
to be populated by the redeemed spirits from 
this ? That was the kingdom of heaven, and 
the text before us evidently refers to it. * The 



FAMILIAR SOUNDS. 8 1 

meek shall inherit the earth ;' the apostles, to 
whom this passage was spoken, needed no 
more definite expression about the matter, of 
which the Master doubtless had spoken many 
times with them. The whole passage seems to 
me an exact repetition of the one before it, just 
to give emphasis to the first." 

" I wonder if that's exactly straight?" re- 
marked Squire Woodhouse, more with the air 
of a man in a soliloquy than one asking a ques- 
tion. "If there is a way of inheriting the 
earth, or even a little piece of it, I'd like to 
know all about it ; but if it's only the next 
world that the passage refers to 

" If it refers only to the next world, you're not 
in such a hurry to understand it," interrupted 
Captain Maile. 

" We ell," drawled the Squire, " that isn't 
exactly the way I was going to finish off, but I 
guess it's pretty near the truth. It dorit sound 
well either, does it ? " 

" Brother Prymm?" said Deacon Bates, and 
6 



82 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

the champion of orthodoxy responded to the 
invitation by saying, 

" The meek are undoubtedly those who fol- 
low the non-resistant injunctions which are 
found everywhere in the New Testament ; they 
are the men who when one cheek is struck turn 
the other also, who render not railing for rail- 
ing." 

" And who, when the coat is taken, will offer 
the cloak also/' added Captain Maile. 

" Certainly," said Mr. Prymm, with rather a 
wry face, " though I cannot, with any present 
light, see how the latter course would be practi- 
cal and judicious. The other injunctions are 
but amplifications of the inspired saying, ' A 
soft answer turneth away wrath,' but how pro- 
perty rights can be maintained at all, if the in- 
junction quoted by Captain Maile were followed, 
I am unable to see." 

" It wouldn't work in the steamboat busi- 
ness," 'declared Mr. Buffle. " It's hard enough 
to get the worth of your money, even when 



FAMILIAR SOUNDS. 83 

men promise to pay ; but if a man were to un- 
derstand that by stealing* one of my tug-boats 
he would have a right to expect a first-class lake 
packet as a present, I'd have to go out of busi- 
ness within a fortnight." 

" I'm inclined to think the passage in ques- 
tion must be an interpolation by one of Christ's 
reporters," said President Lottson, who had 
been taking a cautious course of Matthew 
Arnold. 

" Why, if 7 were to live up to that injunc- 
tion," said Builder Stott, " folks would want to 
modify their house plans every day. In fact 
they do it now. The moment I try to oblige a 
man by giving a little more than his contract 
calls for, he wants something else. Women 
in particular are perfectly awful that way ; 
they " 

" Ladies are present," remarked Lawyer 
Scott, who was considerable of a ladies' man. 

" Just think of a broker trying to do business 
in that way ! " exclaimed Broker Whilcher. 



84 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

" Or a man whose principal crop is hay," 
said Squire Woodhouse. 

" Or an importer of English cutlery," sug- 
gested Mr. Jodderel. " Still, the passage ought 
either to be explained away or lived up to, for 
if going contrary to business rules is necessary 
to inherit the new earth it's contrary to sense 
that this earth can be got hold of by any such 
unbusiness-like operation the new earth, other- 
wise the kingdom of heaven " 

"Members will please bear in mind the rule 
that remarks are to be made in regular order," 
interposed the leader hastily. " We will hear 
from Brother Hopper." 

" I suppose meekness means patience," said 
the gentleman addressed, nervously clutching 
his coat-tail pocket with its precious contents ; 
" not getting into a stew about everything, in 
fact ; but how a man is to be so, when every- 
thing goes on the way it shouldn't, is more than 
/ can tell, and how they're going to get the 
earth for their pains is a bigger puzzle yet." 



. FAMILIAR SOUNDS. 85 

Mr. Lottson being called upon, said: 
" I can only repeat about this passage my 
remarks upon the one which preceded it. It 
means exactly what it says, but it means it only 
in a spiritual sense, and only to those to whom 
it was said to the disciples of Christ, and those 
whose conditions of life are equally admirable 
and peculiar. The disciples were meek all but 
Peter, that is and he stopped being a man of 
the world after he learned that he couldn't be 
that and a consistent disciple too. And look at 
the result ! Haven't the disciples of Christ in- 
herited the earth ? Hasn't the blood of the 
martyrs been the seed of the Church ? Hasn't 
the non-resistent, patient, self-sacrificing course 
of Christian missionaries led to the conversion 
of powerful heathen nations, opened avenues of 

trade between them and Christian countries " 

" Which have straightway been traveled over 
by men who rob the heathen, poison them with 
rum, and kill them off with the popular vices of 
civilization," interrupted Captain Maile. 



86 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

" Opened avenues of trade between them and 
Christian countries," resumed President Lottson, 
as if no interruption had occurred, " created a 
demand for the Bible and the school, discour- 
aged war, extended the area of production, 
established representative governments in the 
place of irresponsible despotisms, brought from 
foreign lands, to study our institutions, men 
whose fathers and grandfathers were brutal 
savages, and hastened the coming of the day 
when at the name of Jesus every knee shall 
bend and every tongue confess him Lord? 
Business alone could never have done this ; it 
required a special development of mind, and to 
those whom he had created for this purpose 
Jesus enounced this promise, which was the 
only one that in the nature of things could be 
made to them about earthly interests." 

" I declare ! " whispered Squire Woodhouse 
to Mr. Buffle, " Lottson did that splendidly. If 
it wasn't for the way he treated me about that 
barn I should say that Lottson ought to have 



FAMILIAR SOUNDS. 87 

gone into the ministry.' 1 At the same moment 
Deacon Bates called Mr. Prymm to the chair, 
took the floor himself, and said : 

" There was a remark dropped by Mr. Lott- 
son, and followed up in his excellent speech, 
which I am certain conceals a truth which is not 
clearly enough realized. If it was r a number of 
puzzling questions that have been before the 
class could have easily been answered. He said 
the passage should be taken in a spiritual sense. 
It certainly should. God is a Spirit ; our own 
spirits are our only immortal parts ; everything 
else in us and everything around us is transient 
and perishable. The meek should be meek in 
a spiritual way ; they should not be puffed up 
with knowledge, or what they think to be such, 
but should in humility open their hearts to the 
influences of the Holy Spirit. Business has 
nothing to do with our eternal welfare; it is 
only one of the necessary but transient affairs 
of our perishable, material bodies ; but the things 
unseen are eternal. If we would constantly 



88 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

keep this fact in our minds I am sure many of 
our present difficulties in studying the Scriptures 
would disappear. This earth is not our abiding 
place ; our time here is but short ; * A thousand 
years are but as a day in His sight ;' heaven is 
our final and eternal home, and it was to in- 
struct us how to prepare our souls for the future 
state of existence that the prophets spoke and 
Jesus came to earth." 

" According to that, it don't matter how we 
do business," said Squire Woodhouse ; " every 
man can be just as sharp and underhanded as 
he pleases. Well, it's a comfortable belief, but 
I think you're mistaken, Deacon, about its 
being lost sight of ; I think pretty much every- 
body lives up to it, as far as business goes." 

" Dr. Fahrenglotz," remarked the leader, in 
evident confusion at the moral deduced from 
his theory. 

"Although not attaching to the words that 
degree of authority that some do," said the 
Doctor, " their unselfish tendency and their 



FAMILIAR SOUNDS. 89 

moral beauty convince me that they have an 
important meaning. That they can apply to 
the common affairs of life I cannot believe, for 
the theory is contrary to reason and experience. 
They probably refer to some coming state of 
society when the application of true reason shall 
have raised men above their present physical 
and moral level, and enabled them to translate 
the mystic sayings of the world's great seers/' 

"Then the passage doesn't command any- 
thing that's really essential to salvation ? " asked 
young Mr. Waggett. 

" Oh, no, certainly not," said Captain Maile. 
" Nothing does, or if it does, our business is to 
get around it somehow, and look at some other 
side of it." 

The leader called upon Mr. Alleman, who 
said : 

" The simple fact that this saying was given 
is sufficient excuse and command to follow it, 
no matter what it brings us or takes from us. 
As, however, the material bearing of the pas- 



90 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

sage has attracted more attention to-day than 
the manifest desire of Christ, I wish to recall to 
notice the peculiar wording. Jesus does not 
say that the meek shall earn or acquire the 
earth, but that they shall inherit it. An inheri- 
tance is something that the child obtains from 
the parent through love and affection. The 
passage means : * Be meek, not given to strife, not 
stirring up wrath, attending to your own affairs, 
not assuming to be better or more deserving 
than others ; ' and God, who owns the earth and 
all that is in it, who makes man his steward, 
who pulleth down one and setteth up another, 
who knows the uses of property better than we 
do, and who sooner or later puts it into proper 
hands, will give you the earth. Be meek, and 
trust to God for appreciation, even upon 
earth." 

" One o'clock," observed President Lottson, 
and the session closed. 

" Now wasrit that just like Alleman ? " asked 
Squire Woodhouse of Mr. Jodderel. " Beauti- 



FAMILIAR SOUNDS. 91 

ful idea perfectly heavenly ; but nothing in it 
that a man can take hold of without running the 
risk of losing some of his property. He'd bet- 
ter not talk that way before the city booksellers, 
if he don't want to have to pay cash for every 
bill of books he buys." 

And Captain Maile walked out singing to 
himself, but in a tone loud enough to be offen- 
sive, the old song beginning, 

'* Whip the devil around the stump." 



CHAPTER VI. 

BUILDER STOTT SAVES THE FAITH. 



I ^HE Scripture Club proceeded promptly to 
-L work on the ensuing Sunday. Too many 
men had brought to the previous meeting ideas 
which they could not find time to express ; so 
on the second Sunday in which the nature and 
reward of the meek were considered, the mem- 
bers who had not expressed their views, with 
several who had, made haste to occupy front 
seats, so as to be sure of opportunities to speak. 
Among these was Squire Woodhouse. He 
had several times ruined the regularity of the 
proceedings of other meetings, but still he was 
unsatisfied. He had not expressed his own 
views in full, partly because he had not been 
asked to do so, but principally because he had 
had no settled views to express. Now, how- 



BUILDER STOTT SAVES THE FAITH. 93 

ever, the case was different. He had leisurely 
pondered over everything that he had heard in 
the class, he had admired each original idea 
with the true American heartiness toward new 
notions, he had endeavored to reconcile them 
with his unformulated but still very positive pre- 
conceived religious opinions, and his honesty 
had finally triumphed over his theology and his 
sophistry. When he came to church, therefore, 
he neglected his own pew and took the front 
seat and the extreme right end thereof, so when 
Deacon Bates opened the exercises of the class 
immediately after service, it was impossible not 
to call upon Squire Woodhouse first of all. The 
Squire cleared his throat, waved his head about 
in a dissatisfied manner, and finally said : 

"This thing of being meek grows pretty 
big when you think about it for a little while, 
and the worst of it is that everything else in the 
chapter is only a chip out of the same block. 
All of it being meek and everything else 
seems to come in the end to just this : you 



94 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

mustn't be like folks in general, particularly like 
business men. I confess that I don't know 
exactly how to do it all, but it seems to me it 
must be done x by anyone who believes that 
Jesus Christ had the right to say all that he 
did. I dorit know how to be meek about the 
way I was swindled treated, I mean by the 
insurance companies when my barn burned 
down " 

" Personal ! " whispered Mr. Prymm. 

" I don't care if it is personal," said Squire 
Woodhouse. " I'm trying to point a moral, and 
it isn't my fault if other folks get in the way and 
get hurt. I don't know how to be meek when 
I'm abused, but " 

" It isn't required of you," said Mr. Jodderel. 
" You're expected to take care of what has been 
intrusted to you in your capacity as a steward 
of the Lord." 

Many were the affirmative shakes of head 
which followed this remark. 

" I suppose I am," said the Squire, " and so 



BUILDER STOTT SAVES THE FAITH. Q5 

long as I am a human being I won't be likely 
to forget it ; but whether when I get mad over 
being swindled the anger all comes from my 
feeling of being deprived of the Lord's prop- 
erty, I'm not so sure : I've a suspicion that 
more of it comes from the heart of Squire 
Woodhouse than from the kingdom of heaven." 

" Not a bit of it," said Mr. Hopper, finding 
at last a subject upon which he could speak 
from the abundance of his heart. " Aren't you 
working for the good of your family, and don't 
St. Paul say that the man who don't look out 
for his family is worse than an infidel ? " 

" Yes," said the Squire meditatively ; " but 
he don't tell you to boil over when there's 
nothing to be gained by it, and when getting 
mad makes you uninteresting to everybody, not 
excepting yourself. He doesn't tell you to let 
your suspicions manage your wits, and deter- 
mine what sort of a man your neighbor is. The 
man who gets the best of me in a trade may be 
a scoundrel ; I've always made it a rule to think 



96 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

so, in fact ; but when I come to think of it, I 
remember that. I've sometimes made a hard, 
sharp trade myself without meaning anything 
wrong." 

" You never carried back the unfair gains, 
though, when you saw what you'd done, did 
you ? " asked Captain Maile. 

" Well, no ; not that I can recollect. I have 
tried to make it up to the man in some way or 
other, though." 

" Taking pains to tell him why you were try- 
ing to do it ? " asked the Captain. 

"No no, I can't say that I did I don't 
know that I ever succeeded in doing it, any 
how," said the Squire honestly. " I'd think it 
over, off and on, and before I'd know it, the 
whole thing would fall out of my mind." 

" So all you did was to ease your conscience 

sing it to sleep, so to speak," continued the 

Captain. " You gave him all the good feeling 

you could, which you couldn't help giving any 

way, because you're naturally a good-hearted 



BUILDER STOTT SAVES THE FAITH. 97 

fellow, and then when you'd comforted yourself 
your work stopped." 

" That's about the truth of the matter," re- 
plied the Squire, " though I didn't mean to out 
with it all so plainly before folks." 

" Then," asked the Captain, " what's the 
moral difference between you and a rascal ? " 

" Sh h h h" arose in chorus, even Presi- 
dent Lottson taking part in the remonstrance. 

"There isn't any," said the Squire stoutly, 
" if everybody's a rascal that's called one. But 
anybody that has the honest feelings / have, 
and that loves the square thing so much, and 
likes so much to see it done, isrit a rascal, and 
as I've had the kind of experiences I've told 
about, I don't see why other men that have had 
others like them, and that are called ugly names 
by me as well as everybody else, mayn't be just 
as right at heart as I am. After this I'm going 
to believe them so, any how." 

There was a general nod of assent, and Presi- 
dent Lottson arose, went around to where the 



98 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

Squire was sitting, and offered his hand to the 
loser of the barn. The Squire took it, rather 
gingerly at first, but finally gave it a squeeze so 
hearty that President Lottson winced and drew 
his hand away. 

" There ! " exclaimed Captain Maile ; " every- 
thing is all right now, of course. Goodness 
don't consist in doing right, but only in feeling 
right. Not what you do, but what you believe 
is what saves a man." 

" Such is the decree of God and the decision 
of the Church," remarked Mr. Prymm. 

" Then what saints the devils must be ! " ob- 
served the Captain ; " for they believe, though, 
to be sure, they tremble." 

Another murmur of dissent was heard, and 
young Mr. Waggett hastened to throw a small 
quantity of oil on the troubled waters by re- 
marking that whatever was sufficient to salva- 
tion was the fulfillment of God's plan as revealed 
in the holy Scriptures. 

" I'm not through yet," said the Squire. " I 



BUILDER STOTT SAVES THE FAITH. 99 

was coming to that point. Of course, other men 
make blunders very much like mine. I ought 
to be meek about judging them I ought to 
forgive them their trespasses as I hope to have 
mine forgiven. But if there's so much excuse 
to think bad of men for what they do and don't 
do, we ought to put the cause out of the way, as 
well as to be patient with others as we'd have 
them patient with us. If I've had reason so 
many times to think the worst about church 
members, I suppose that sinners sinners out- 
side of the Church must see them to be just as 
bad as I do. And if they do, what induce- 
ment is there for sinners to come into the 
Church?" 

" Salvation ! " promptly answered young Mr. 
Waggett. 

" That's no moral inducement," said the 
Squire ; " it's a selfish one." 

" Oh, oh, oh! " exclaimed Builder Stott, sup- 
ported by a sympathetic sensation which was 
manifested by most of the members, while Mr. 



100 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

Jodderel sprang to his feet and said shouted, 
almost : 

" Mr. Chairman, I protest against this drift- 
ing away from the subject by talking all sorts 
of new-fangled notions that " 

" Free speech is the rule of this class," said 
Captain Maile. " Youve given us a great deal 
about the kingdom of heaven that nobody ever 
heard of before, that's as unheard of in the 
Bible or the Church " 

" It is in the Bible/ 1 said Mr. Jodderel ; " you'll 
find it in the prophets and apostles from begin- 
ning to end." 

" I would suggest," said Mr. Prymm, in the 
most measured and soothing of tones, " that 
Brother Woodhouse should remember that we 
have but a single hour in the week to talk upon 
these subjects, and that however deeply he may 
be interested in his own peculiar views, it would 
be well to let all who are present have an op- 
portunity to offer their views." 

" Yes, let's get away from morality as soon as 



BUILDER STOTT SAVES THE FAITH. IOI 

we can," said Captain Maile. "What's Sunday 
good for, if you can't in it get away from these 
enraging affairs of the week ? Nine-tenths of 
the moral questions in the world are started by 
business ; and who has any right to drag busi- 
ness into the Lord's house on Sunday, and just 
after a sermon, too ? " 

Faces confused, awry, angry, and merry, 
showed that the Captain had aroused a great 
deal of feeling, which, in sentiment, was not a 
unit. Deacon Bates would have ordered the 
immediate relief of the class from extraneous 
subjects ; but he had, from the beginning of the 
services, groaned over the fact that next to 
Squire Woodhouse sat Mr. Jodderel, and no 
one else could be called upon without destroy- 
ing that rule of rotation upon which the leader 
generally depended for relief. Silently resolving 
to pack the front seats on the succeeding Sun- 
day, he said, in tones so subdued as to be almost 
pathetic : 

" Brother Jodderel." 



IO2 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

The members looked resignedly into each 
other's eyes ; Mr. Stott turned to the table of 
Hebrew weights and measures in his Bible, and 
tried to lose himself in them ; Broker Whilcher 
began slyly ciphering on a card, doubtless to 
solve some problem of the market ; Mr. Alle- 
man buried himself in a school report from 
some other town ; Mr. Hopper re-read to 
himself the paper on " The True Location of 
the Holy Sepulchre ; " and Mr. Buffle dropped 
into gentle slumber. 

"I want to say," said Mr. Jodderel, "that 
you can't rightly know how to be meek until 
you know what's to be required of you in the 
earth which the meek are to inherit, and you 
can't know that without knowing where and 
what that earth is. Now, it cant mean this 
earth, for if the meek inherited it, it would be 
stolen away from them precious quickly. What 
happens to a meek man when somebody hits 
him without knocking the meekness out of him ? 
he gets hit again. What happens to him if 



BUILDER STOTT SAVES THE FAITH. 1 03 

somebody tries to swindle him out of his prop- 
erty, and he don't show that he won't endure 
imposition ? he'll be cheated out of every cent. 
So the meekness that we think about is evidently 
not the thing for the earth that's to be inherited, 
and the question is, what is ? And that brings 
us back to the question, What sort of a land 

are we going to inherit ? It " 

" If it is to be the abode of the finally saved 
and redeemed," said Mr. Radley, " I really 
don't see that meekness can be enjoined upon 
its inhabitants, unless we are all mistaken about 
the nature of the change that will take place 
after death. Our mental condition will be 
determined for us, and we can't do better on 
this earth than act according to what seems 
the highest order of goodness. I should really 
like to ask the gentleman if the next world is all 
that we are to think of while we remain in this 
one, and whether we are not to guide ourselves 
somewhat by the rights of other people as well 
as by our own desires ? " 



IO4 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

" This earth is not our abiding place," quoted 
Mr. Pry mm ; " we have a home not made 
with hands, eternal in the heavens." 

" Certainly," said Mr. Jodderel ; " that's cor- 
rect ; it is in the heavens in the sky the air 
above us, in which are suspended all the plan- 
etary bodies, one of which " 

" The gentleman has lost sight of my ques- 
tion," said Mr. Radley. 

" So will everybody else," remarked Captain 
Maile. " If you press that question, you'll 
ruin the interest of this meeting. We didn't 
come here to learn what we ought to do ; 
we're here to study out what's to be done 
for us." 

" Not a bit of it," said Mr. Buffle, who has 
slowly awakened from his nap* " Tm not, any 
way. I'm as fond as any one else of getting 
anything ; but I've already been blessed with 
more than I deserve, and I want to know what 
God's will concerning me is on earth as well as 
in heaven." 



BUILDER STOTT SAVES THE FAITH. ICO 

" Always providing it don't cost you any- 
thing," said Captain Maile. 

" Nonsense," replied Mr. Buffle, rather angrily. 
" I never refused to spend money on any really 
useful charity." 

Several members softly responded, " That's 
true." 

" Yes," said Captain Maile ; " you occasion- 
ally spend a penny out of a dollar, so to speak, 
and you deserve credit for it, for very few other 
men of means go so far ; you're ahead of your 
day and generation. When I carry around a 
subscription paper for anything, your name al- 
ways has a handsome sum after it. But do you 
really mean that you are going through this 
Sermon on the Mount if we live long enough 
to get through it, which is very unlikely at the 
present rate of progress and practically agree 
to what it says ? " 

Mr. Buffle was cornered ; but blessed be 
corners ! There are no other positions in life 
from which a man can obtain so good a view of 
5* 



io6 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

himself. Mr. Buffle studied the back of the 
seat in front of him for a few seconds ; looked 
rather blank, then very modest, then very 
manly, raised his head, and said : 

" Yes, I do/ 1 

" Good ! " was the only word Captain Maile 
uttered, while Mr. Jodderel shook his head 
dismally, and exclaimed : 

" Here we are, away from the subject again, 
Mr. Leader ! " 

" We can hurry back to it, if the gentleman 
will answer my question," observed Mr. Radley. 

" It's one o'clock," remarked Builder Stott. 

The members arose, and most of them de- 
parted as soon as possible, while President 
Lottson turned to Stott, and said : 

" You did that just in time." 

" Well," said Stott modestly, " something had 
to be done. This old fight between faith and 
works has played the mischief wherever it's come 
up among men, and I'm not going to sit still and 
see it break up an interesting class like this. 



BUILDER STOTT SAVES THE FAITH. IO7 

I've no other chance to study the Bible except 
here, and I'm not going to have it ruined by a 
lot of theorists getting into a row. I'm afraid 
it's too late, though. Buffle got some new 
notion into his head when Maile cornered him 
there ; and he never lets go of any thought that 
strikes him as good. The first thing you'll hear 
of will be another subscription list, with his 
name at the head, and he'll go into it with all 
his might, like he did about the building of this 
church ; and everybody will be worried by him, 
and he'll drag it in here, and act as if the 
Bible wasn't anything but a code of every-day 
morals." 

" And forget all about the gospel-plan of sal- 
vation," said young Mr. Waggett. 

" And the kingdom of heaven," suggested 
Mr. Jodderel. 

" And the atonement, the central truth of the 
Scriptures," remarked Mr. Prymm ; " the vica- 
rious efficacy of the atonement." 

" And you'll shut your ears and eyes for fear 



io8 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

you might be converted and healed," said Cap- 
tain Maile. 

And the lingerers went straightway every 
man to his own house. 



CHAPTER VII. 

FREE SPEECH BECOMES ANNOYING. 

AS the next meeting of the Scripture Club 
was about to open, certain members 
noticed that Mr. Jodderel had taken a seat 
which would entitle him to be the first person 
called upon for an opinion, and that he was 
divesting his pockets of a large number of 
books, most of them in faded and unconven- 
tional bindings. The members glanced at each 
other in terror, and when the opening prayer 
was concluded, Mr. Radley promptly ex- 
claimed : 

" Mr. Leader, the New Testament contains 
eight thousand verses, lacking two. With oc- 
casional quadrennial exceptions, there are but 
fifty-two Sundays in a year. We have already 

consumed, on an average, two Sundays to a 

109 



IIO EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

verse ; at this rate we will need more than 
three hundred years to get through the New 
Testament. Certain chapters, like the first 
chapter of Matthew and the third chapter of 
Luke, may form exceptions ; but as no man here 
can expect to live through much more than one- 
tenth of the time necessary to consider all the 
Gospels and Epistles, and as, even at the rate 
of a verse to a day, we would need to have our 
lives extended to several times the average 
longevity of mortals, I move that no single verse 
of Scripture shall be allowed to monopolize the 
attention of this class for more than one Sun- 
day." 

" I second the motion," said Mr. Alleman. 

" Mr. Leader ! " exclaimed Mr. Jodderel, " I 
object. We have spent two Sundays in con- 
sidering the third beatitude, and we know no 
more about the whereabouts of the kingdom of 
heaven than when we began. If the proposed 
resolution takes effect now, and we find each 
verse of the Gospel as interesting as those 



FREE SPEECH BECOMES ANNOYING. Ill 

already studied, no one knows how many of us 
may go from our deathbeds to the bar of God 
without knowing what to expect thereafter." 

" And as God is only our Father, and the 
maker of the universe, and as we profess only to 
believe that he is wiser and more loving than 
any earthly parent, we daren't trust him to 
make the matter plain in the next world," ob- 
served Captain Maile. 

" Question ! " exclaimed every one who had 
perceived Mr. Jodderel's collection of books. 

The question was put and carried, with but 
two dissenting voices, that of young Mr. Wag- 
gett being one of them. Then the Leader read 
the verse : 

" Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst 
after righteousness, for they shall be filled ; " 
and he asked Mr. Jodderel to open the discus- 
sion. The gentleman addressed maintained a 
sulky silence for about two minutes, and finally 
remarked : 

" This class seems bound to drift from spirit- 



1 1 2 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

ual interests to temporal ones. The discussion 
of the most important question suggested by 
revelation has been prevented by an almost 
unanimous vote, and now we are expected to 
consider righteousness mere morality and its 
rather dubious earthly reward. Filled ? Why, 
certainly they will be filled. In this late day 
and age no man studies the moral law without 
learning more than his mind can hold. Right- 
eousness is good ; it is necessary ; men need to 
learn about it, and others need to teach it, but 
it's an awful come-down for the great fact of a 
life beyond the grave." 

"Certainly," said Captain Maile. " Right- 
eousness is full of annoying little bothers about 
what ought to be done for other people, while 
the kingdom of heaven consists only of what is 
to be done for ourselves. The Bible is crammed 
full of these tormenting hints, and they always 
appear just when a man would rather think 
about something else ; being given by divine 
command, though, as the majority of the class 



FREE SPEECH BECOMES ANNOYING. 113 

believe they are, I suppose they must be talked 
about in one way or another." 

" They certainly should," said Broker Whil- 
cher, who had been attracted to Mr. Jodderel's 
side by the array of books which that gentleman 
had begun to bring into line. " I have a sad 
reputation in point of orthodoxy, but what Cap- 
tain Maile admits in sarcasm, / declare- in the 
most solemn earnest. Morality is the order of 
things, and to a sinner like me, it seems to be 
a matter of prime importance. The interest 
which some of the members display in the na- 
ture of the kingdom of heaven is quite natural 
and proper ; but how they propose to get there 
without morality, or, if they please, righteous- 
ness, is a puzzle to any man who reads the 
Bible and notices the importance attached to 
right conduct." 

Deacon Bates promptly called President Lott- 
son to the chair, took the floor himself, during 
an animated buzz by the class, and delivered 
with rapidity and emphasis the following speech : 



114 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

" The method of reaching the better world, 
other than that of mere right doing, is rightly a 
matter of wonder to those who do not accept 
the inspired Word as a divinely designed and 
revealed plan for the salvation of sinful man. 
But if any of the good Book has binding force, 
all of it has ; it stands or falls as a whole. We 
are informed by the apostle whose writings fill 
half of the New Testament, that ' The law of the 
Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free 
from the law of sin, which is death. For what 
the law' that is, the law of righteousness 
* for what the law could not do, in that it was 
weak through the flesh, God, sending his own 
Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, 
condemned the flesh : that the righteousness 
of the law might be fulfilled in us, who walk not 
after the flesh, but after the Spirit' And again 
we are told oh, blessed assurance to those 
who find the law of righteousness impossible to 
fulfill ! that * Abraham believed God, and it was 
imputed unto him for righteousness.' And we 



FREE SPEECH BECOMES ANNOYING. 1 1 5 

are also told, by the Saviour himself, that ' God 
so loved the world that he gave his only be- 
gotten Son, that whoso believeth in him shall 
not perish but have eternal life/ The law can- 
not be fulfilled by man ; we are all imperfect ; 
even when we will to do right the flesh wars 
against the spirit, and ignorance hinders men 
of the best intentions from doing what they 
would do. No man can be saved through the 
law ; excepting Jesus Christ, ' there is no other 
name under heaven whereby mankind can be 
saved/ I hope I have answered the gentle- 
man's question in a manner distinct enough to 
be understood by him and such others here 
present to whom the Gospel plan of salvation is 
not as plain as it should be." 

Deacon Bates resumed the chair, and Broker 
Whilcher replied : 

" The explanation is perfectly satisfactory, as 
an answer to my question ; but it seems to me 
rather strange that any one should be willing to 
enter without effort when everybody is plainly 



u6 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

told the desires of the king and benefactor 
whom they expect to meet." 

Builder Stott sat next, and hastened to the 
rescue of faith from a freethinker like Mr. Whil- 
cher. 

" Suppose we do right always," said he, 
" what does it amount to ? Our righteousness 
is as filthy rags in His sight, according to the 
inspired Word, and there's very little to hope 
for from anything so worthless. Nobody knows, 
even when he's doing his best, whether he is 
right or wrong. Even Satan sometimes ap- 
pears as an angel of light. I can remember 
many a time when I've done what seemed to 
be exactly the right thing, and I not only went 
without any credit for it, but it seemed to make 
everything else go wrong. I begin to think the 
Lord knows his own business best, and that we 
can't meddle with it without getting into trou- 
ble." 

" Getting into trouble is an excuse for not 
trying to do right, is it?" asked Captain Maile. 



FREE SPEECH BECOMES ANNOYING. I ! J 

" No, it isn't," replied Mr. Stott quite testily ; 
" but a man can do a great deal of trying with- 
out succeeding, and without finding what is the 
proper thing to do. If we always knew just 
what was right, we should never get into 
trouble." 

" I should like to ask the gentleman if Christ, 
the apostles, and prophets never got into trou- 
ble ? " said Mr. Alleman. 

" I suppose they did," replied Mr. Stott, in 
visible embarrassment; "but but that was di- 
vinely ordained for the benefit of sinful man." 

" I should like also to ask if the gentleman 
considers the servant above his master, and free 
from responsibility for his conduct ? " 

" No, of course not," said Mr. Stott, 
-but " 

Mr. Stott's expression remained unfinished 
for so long a time that Mr. BufHe took pity 
upon him, and remarked : 

" It seems to me that unless hungering and 
thirsting after righteousness is a special virtue, 



n8 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

it would not have been brought into this small 
group of qualities for which special blessings are 
promised. If it is of so much consequence, we 
ought, in gratitude to God, to be anxious to 
learn just what righteousness is. What we are 
to get for practicing it isn't of so much conse- 
quence. And as there aren't many of us who 
have had so much reason to study the meaning 
of the word as our friend Judge Cottaway has, 
I think the class will be willing to waive the 
regular order of answering for once, and hear 
from the Judge his opinion of this important 
word." 

Every one looked at the Judge, and Deacon 
Bates remarked that he would assume that Mr. 
Buffle expressed the sentiments of every one. 

" Righteousness," said the Judge, with his 
regulation court-room air, " has but one mean- 
ing. Philologically, legally, morally, and spirit- 
ually it means right doing. Legally, righteous- 
ness consists in obeying the law, and, by impli- 
cation, refraining from offending the law. Mor- 



FREE SPEECH BECOMES ANNOYING. 11$ 

ally, it is the very highest attainment possible 
to man ; in its fulfillment every ordinary duty of 
man toward man is accomplished. Spiritually, 
either under the old dispensation or the new, 
its range of application is increased and its 
nature strengthened and elevated. By no cor- 
rect line of reasoning, nor by any honest inter- 
pretation of the letter and spirit of the Scriptures, 
can the imperative obligation of man to do 
righteousness be set aside. Because the term is 
frequently used as a synonym for piety, there is 
no excuse for substituting religious belief for it, 
for true piety must include righteousness, and 
has no foundation without it. The religious 
sentiment may suddenly take possession of a 
man who has previously been unrighteous ; but 
it is reputable and valuable only so far as it 
induces its subject to attain, not only to negative 
righteousness, the refraining from misconduct, 
which the law holds to be sufficient, but also 
to that positive, active virtue, enjoined by all 
the inspired teachers, which shall make a man 



I2O EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

actively virtuous, and from higher motives than 
that of merely escaping penalties and gaining 
rewards. Christ himself said of the moral law 
that every jot and tittle of it should be fulfilled." 

" And it was fulfilled, on the Cross, when 
he cried, ' It is finished,' " interrupted Builder 
Stott. 

" That's so," said young Mr. Waggett, now 
thoroughly aroused. " If it hadn't been, we 
never could have been saved." 

"If the gentlemen really infer from Christ's 
last words that he meant to set aside the moral 
law," resumed Judge Cottaway, "the Church 
has been making a sad blunder during the 
twenty centuries which have followed the scene 
on Calvary. During all these years, she has 
been a teacher of morality ; she has restrained, 
sometimes by persuasion, oftener by authority, 
sometimes by mistaken methods, sometimes in 
too lukewarm a manner, the baser passions of 
mankind, and encouraged the nobler qualities. 
In legal righteousness, the ancient Romans sur- 



FREE SPEECH BECOMES ANNOYING. 121 

passed the world, and gave the models of all 
codes in operation to-day in the civilized world. 
And yet righteousness among the Romans, 
while wise, was often vindictive, and always 
wholly selfish. The smallest, most ignorant 
community in our neighborhood to-day has a 
higher, purer conception and practice of moral- 
ity than the central city of the world had in the 
time of Christ, and though it is not under the 
special direction of the Church, its growth can 
be traced back to no other source." 

" I've often heard," said Mr. Jodderel, " that so 
an Episcopalian admits the authority and divine 
origin of his Church, he can believe anything he 
pleases, and the address we have just listened 
to convinces me that the statement is true. 
Why, gentlemen, while nobody has a higher 
respect for Judge Cottaway's character and at- 
tainments than I have, it seems to me that he 
isn't much different from a Unitarian or any 
other freethinker that imagines he has some 

hold upon religion. Why, gentlemen, what's 
6 



122 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

the good of Christ having lived and died at all, 
if we're still in bondage under the law ? I don't 
mean that we're not to do right when we can 
I want to do right as much as any man ever 
did but if I've got to be bothered about all 
the little points that the Scribes and Pharisees 
fussed over, I don't see how much better off I 
am than they were." 

" The gentleman is better off, as he expresses 
it," said the Judge, " because he has the benefit 
of the clearer light which Christ shed upon the 
law, and because through the life and death of 
Christ he has incentives to that love for the 
Source of all goodness which enables a man to 
overcome difficulties which, to the merely self- 
ish moralist, are utterly insurmountable. It is 
thus that love becomes the fulfillment of the 
law, for it enables the weakest man to overcome 
his worst inclinations." 

" What becomes, then, of the doctrine of jus- 
tification by faith the corner-stone of all Prot- 
estantism ? " asked President Lottson. 



FREE SPEECH BECOMES ANNOYING. 123 

" It remains as strong as ever/' answered the 
Judge. " All are forgiven, our misdeeds com- 
mitted in ignorance, when mark the condition 
when we are honest in intention and effort. 
'The just' the righteous, that is, those who 
do right to the best of their knowledge ' shall 
live by faith.' I would remind the gentleman 
that Christian theology, of every school, is based 
principally upon the principles laid down by that 
masterly jurist, the Apostle Paul, and that he 
makes of faith not the master but the subordi- 
nate of love. ' And now abideth faith, hope, 
love, these three ; but the greatest of these is 
love.' ' 

" You can't go back on Paul," remarked 
Squire Woodhouse, " but it's often seemed to 
me that religious people treat Paul a great deal 
as the boys treat my orchard ; they steal the 
apples they like the looks of best, but the best 
I've got are really the least handsome, and I 
generally have the full crop to myself." 



124 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

Some one reminded the Leader that it was 
one o'clock, and the class arose. 

" I'm going into Humbletop's class after this," 
said Builder Stott to President Lottson. " I 
was a little doubtful when this class was started 
whether it wouldn't sooner or later run things 
into the ground, and now it has done it. Cot- 
taway is a dangerous man, for all his knowledge 
and squareness. There are men here, mem- 
bers of our Church, that'll be as likely as not to 
swallow all that he said, and then what'll their 
faith amount to ? I say that if any such non- 
sense gets a hold in this church it ought to be 
made a matter of discipline." 

" I think / shall remain with the class," said 
President Lottson. " There is a great deal of 
what is said here that I can't approve of, but that 
is all the more reason that somebody with a cool 
head and quick wits should be on hand to pre- 
vent the orthodox faith from going to ruin." 

" I was very much interested in your re- 
marks," said Broker Whilcher to the Judge. 



FRE-E SPEECH BECOMES ANNOYING. 125 

" Matthew Arnold has put forth some of the 
same views." 

" I am glad to hear it," replied the Judge. 
" They will save him from drifting into vacuity, 
and they will convince his readers of his hon- 
esty of purpose. I wish only that I could be- 
lieve that such views had as strong a hold upon 
the Church as they have upon the outside world. 
Verily, Christ never spoke a truer saying than 
that 'a man's foes shall be they of his own 
household.' M 



CHAPTER VIII. 

AFTERMATH. 

r I ^HE closing of that session of the Scripture 
JL Club, in which the nature and reward of 
righteousness was discussed, did not end the 
consideration of the subject. Mr. Radley him- 
self determined that, at the next meeting, some 
one should move the rescinding of his own reso- 
lution to allow but one Sunday to a verse of. 
Scripture; and several other members, among 
them Squire Woodhouse, Mr. Buffle, and Mr. 
Alleman, determined to put the resolution to 
death at the first opportunity. In the mean 
time, no member of the class, who went to and 
from the city on the little steamer Oak-leaf, nor 
any one who had occasion to visit the local 
post-office, was allowed to forget the subject, 
which, not for the first time, caused such widely 



differing theories to be offered. 



126 



AFTERMATH. \2^ 

" You didn't have an opportunity to ex- 
press your opinions last Sunday? "said Squire 
Woodhouse to Mr. Alleman, at the post-office 
on Monday evening, while the latter awaited 
the opening of the mail, and the former lay in 
wait for some one upon whom to expend his 
pent-up energies. 

" No," replied the teacher ; " and I doubt 
whether the expression of them would have 
done any good. Men are always willing enough 
to be observers of a quarrel ; but to take part in 
one generally passes for a sign of bad breed- 
ing, and the care that men have for the results 
of their bringing up is, under such circum- 
stances, admirable beyond expression." 

" Oh, you're not exactly fair, I think," said 
the Squire. " Every member of that class thinks 
the case of faith vs. works is his own ; he must 
be interested in one side or the other, for he 
believes eternity depends upon it." 

" I don't see why any one should have such 
an idea," said Mr. Alleman. " It doesn't make 



128 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

the slightest difference which side they take, if 
they really believe as they claim to do." 

" Goodness ! " exclaimed the Squire. " Why, 
are you going over to the defense of faith 
against works ? You, who have always been 
preaching up good works as the whole end of 
life ? I'm afraid I've been in too much of a hurry, 
for I've been drifting over to your side very, 
very fast during the past two or three weeks." 

" I've not changed my principles in the least," 
replied Mr. Alleman. " Either belief includes 
the other, if a man is really sincere in the be- 
lief itself." 

" Well," said the Squire, with humility, " you 
scholarly fellows can do sums in your heads 
at a rate that no common man's ciphering can 
equal. I thought I'd heard a great deal on 
this subject, both before I experienced a change 
and after, but I never could see that there could 
be any agreement between the two. One set 
of men say that faith is everything ; another 
say that works are the thing ; both sets make 



AFTERMATH. I 29 

faces when they pass each other on Sunday on 
their way to their separate churches, and, if I 
read the religious papers correctly, it's the sub- 
ject of the greatest religious fighting in the 
world." 

" The fighting is between the men, not the 
ideas," said Mr. Alleman. 

" Having withdrawn from the class," re- 
marked Dr. Humbletop, who also was present, 
"or, I might say, having never belonged to it, I 
don't know that I have any right to take part 
in your conversation, but as this is not a stated 
session of the class " 

" Even if it was, Doctor, you'd be free to say 
whatever you liked," interrupted the Squire. 
" Free speech is the rule of the class on Sun- 
days, and we certainly aren't going to be any 
narrower out of school than in it. Besides, 
you've been to a theological seminary, and 
know the ins and outs of this question. Now, 
I want to know if I'm not right and Alleman 

wrong ? " 

6* 



130 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

" You certainly are correct in your assump- 
tions," replied the reverend doctor. " The 
Church, or, more properly speaking, the world 
and the Church, have always been at war upon 
this important issue. It has been the cause 
of battles in which precious human blood was 
shed, as well as of struggles in which words, 
fiercer than spears and darts, have been the 
weapons used, and souls instead of bodies 
were to be counted among the killed and 
wounded." 

" And the Church," remarked young Mr. 
Waggett, as he tore the wrapper from a reli- 
gious newspaper, which the postmaster had just 
handed him, " our Church has decided in favor 
of justification by faith, as the only sure way 
of salvation. Other churches " 

" There are no other churches," said Dr. 
Humbletop. " There are societies, containing 
many well-meaning persons, which have works 
as a basis of organization. They have built edi- 
fices for worship, founded colleges and schools 



AFTERMATH. 

for the education of youth in their ideas, es- 
tablished newspapers, settled persons who, by 
courtesy, are called pastors, and formed socie- 
ties which do much toward the amelioration of 
the physical condition of unfortunate humanity. 
The respect which they manifest toward por- 
tions of the Word of God renders it impossible 
to deny that they possess religious feeling and 
aspiration ; but to admit that they constitute a 
portion of the body of which Christ is the head, 
is impossible. These persons, individually and 
in their associated capacity, war against the dis- 
tinctive doctrine of the Church, which is, that 
Christ died for all men to make atonement for 
sin, that all men may become partakers in the 
benefits of this saving act by acknowledging 
him to be their Lord and Saviour." 

" There I told you so," said the Squire to 
the teacher. 

" The Doctor has suggested a point of differ- 
ence between the two great sections of the 
Protestant Church," said Mr. Alleman ; " but 



132 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

that was not the subject upon which we were 
talking." 

" Why, yes, it was," said Builder Stott, who 
had been listening, while pretending to be other- 
wise engaged. " I heard every word of it." 

Mr. Alleman gave an impatient start. " I 
said the disagreement was between men, and 
not between ideas. Our good champion of or- 
thodoxy, the Doctor, cannot, with due respect 
to his Maker, admit that there are any works 
of real value that are not prompted by a true 
belief in the principles enounced by Jesus. 
Faith implies trust ; trust of the inferior in the 
superior signifies a willingness to be guided : 
the guidance of a Being in whose wisdom and 
love we have unlimited confidence must be fol- 
lowed, if we really believe His utterances, and 
believe our own nature to be as imperfect and 
sinful as we profess to think it is." 

" Ah ! " said Dr. Humbletop, " theories of hu- 
man action may be very beautiful, but that very 
imperfection and sinfulness of man makes them 



AFTERMATH. 133 

of no effect. Logically, Mr. Alleman is per- 
fectly correct, and, from his very assertions, 
the Church deduces the argument whereby she 
brings reason to the support of inspiration. Man 
is so imperfect, so sinful, so depraved, that, when 
he would do good, evil is ever present with him. 
This condition of man shows the absolute need 
of a Saviour, and, of course, a loving God will 
not allow his children to lack anything which 
they really need. Thus the need and the exist- 
ence of a Saviour are established, by their in- 
terdependence upon each other." 

" That is hardly the point of our conver- 
sation," said Mr. Alleman. " The question 
between us was, whether there was not a sim- 
ilar interdependence between faith and works ; 
whether, as either of them logically implies the 
other, either is not logically inclusive of the 
other." 

" Works include faith ? " exclaimed Builder 
Stott. " Well, excuse me, but my time is valu- 
able, and I guess I'll be moving. I always like 



134 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

to get hold of a real idea about religion, but 
that notion is too far-fetched for anything. 
Why, according to you, a Unitarian or a hea- 
then, if he does good, is a child of God and a 
partaker of the promises. Christ might as well 
not have lived and died, if that is all his work 
amounted to." 

Mr. Stott started, and Squire Woodhouse 
exclaimed, " Why don't you keep him ? " 

" Because," said Mr. Alleman, with a peculiar 
smile, " I'm occasionally orthodox enough to 
believe that some men are predestinated to de- 
struction, and that men, like Stott, who never 
follow Christ's teachings and dread them as 
they do Satan, are among the number. Hon- 
estly, now, Squire Woodhouse, can you see 
how a sincere attempt to fulfill the moral in- 
junctions of Jesus Christ and his apostles can 
fail to lead a man to faith in Christ and the 
Father ? When a system of morality is given, 
which, in terms and results, is so far above the 
morality of the world that the world shrinks 



AFTERMATH. 135 

from it, yet which in practice proves to be cor- 
rect, do you suppose it is possible to doubt the 
higher inspiration of the giver ? Did any mere 
law-giver ever enjoin unselfishness ? Is unself- 
ishness natural ? Does not its practice, and the 
spiritual influence which is felt in return for its 
practice, raise a man to a plane of wisdom, ten- 
derness, and strength, such as has never been 
reached in any other way ? Have not honest 
disbelievers in great numbers, when they have 
attempted a higher morality than that of the 
world in general, fallen back upon Christ as 
their only available teacher, and been led to 
him, either by desperation or sympathy, or 
both ? " 

The Squire had not read as much as Mr. Alle- 
man in the controversial theological literature 
of the day, and he could not reply from actual 
knowledge, but he said : 

" I don't know, but I'll take your word for it. 
I know that although I'm a church member, and 
pretend to be led by the Spirit, there have been 



136 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

only once in a while times when I've got out- 
side of business rules about matters of time and 
money, and that, when these times have come, 
I've felt nearer to God than I've ever done 
even when I've been in trouble." 

" Then you understand my meaning," said 
Mr. Alleman. " There is no difference 'between 
faith and works, providing both are rendered in 
sincerity, for neither of them can help leading to 
the other. And as you have seen the truth of 
this fact by personal experience, you are just 
the man who should support me in the effort 
which I hope to make next Sunday to impress 
this truth upon the class, not for the sake of pre- 
senting a new theory for discussion, but to join 
conflicting ideas for the good of man and the 
glory of God." 

" I frankly admit," said Dr. Humbletop, 
" that friend Alleman's idea is a beautiful one 
so beautiful that it could not have been con- 
ceived without inspiration from on high. But 
should it prevail in society instead of being con- 



AFTERMATH. 137 

fined to the individual breast, its results can 
hardly fail to be disastrous. What will restrain 
depraved humanity from neglecting the offer of 
salvation by faith in Christ, and devote itself to 
working out its own salvation ? How many 
souls will be lost if the fear of eternal suffering 
is not held before them, and if they attempt to 
begin through work, and finish ere the blessed 
time of change comes ? " 

" If they can trust to God's mercy while they 
are mere beggars for help/' said Mr. Alleman, 
" they can certainly do it while they are endea- 
voring to help themselves and Him. Unless," 
continued Mr. Alleman, with an impatient ges- 
ture, " unless God can seem to you to be no- 
thing but a vengeful monster unless he has at 
some unknown time withdrawn all his merciful 
promises to those who do righteousness and 
walk uprightly." 

" My dear young friend," said Dr. Humbletop, 
who had slowly been dropping his head back- 
ward and adding intensity to the solicitude ex- 



138 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

pressed by his stare, " do you know that you 
have taken upon yourself the authority to urge 
men from the new dispensation back to the 
old, and thus to set back the work of grace for 
two thousand years ? Do you not know that 
the law alone was found to be insufficient? " 

" Do you not know," said Mr. Alleman, " that 
by that assertion you impugn the wisdom of the 
Almighty ? " 

t( God forbid ! " exclaimed the doctor, start- 
ing backward so abruptly that he nearly over- 
turned the post-office stove. " The law was 
given as it was on account of the hardness 
of men's hearts, as Christ himself expressly 
states." 

" True," said Mr. Alleman, " and * the times 
of this ignorance God winked at, but now com- 
mandeth all men to repent.' When the law was 
insufficient to the needs of mankind, God sent 
another law-giver in the person of Christ. And 
men might have obeyed him to a greater extent 
than they do, had not the Church taken the po- 



AFTERMATH. 139 

sition that the need of man was of more con- 
sequence than duty to God, and that saving 
one's self which human selfishness is abund- 
antly able to look out for without being urged 
to it is of more consequence than comply- 
ing with the desires of Christ, and through 
Christ, God." 

" Salvation possible through human selfish- 
ness ! " ejaculated Dr. Humbletop. 

" That's the sentiment which the church most 
appeals to," said Mr. Alleman. 

" The central truth of inspiration, revelation, 
and the atonement only a concession to the fears 
and personal desires of mankind ! " continued 
the doctor. " Oh, horrible, horrible!" 

" It is horrible," said Mr. Alleman, " that a 
strong organization like the Church, with re- 
spectability, morality, tradition, and authority on 
its side, should teach such a doctrine ; but your 
own sermons, which I have found to be models 
of logic, though based upon false premises, 
prove the truth of your condensation of my 



140 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

statements. Men are urged, not to righteous- 
ness as taught by prophets, apostles, and the 
Master himself, but to take the best possible 
care of Number One urged to something 
which the most miserable savage alive knows 
is dictated by the strongest instinct of his nature. 
What must Christ, remembering the intensity 
and agony of his earthly efforts, think of the 
Church?" 

Dr. Humbletop assumed, slowly, his pulpit 
manner, and at length replied : 

" My dear friend for dear I must call you 
in remembrance of your many self-denying 
efforts for the good of mankind I must decline 
to discuss this subject any further with you. 
For two thousand years the Church of Christ 
has endured, and guided itself according to the 
words of Christ himself " 

" All of his words, or only such of them as 
have been fullest of promise of safety ? " inter- 
rupted Mr. Alleman. 

" All of them," boldly replied the doctor. 



AFTERMATH. 

tl The Church has taught everything that Christ 
did. I, myself, have preached from every verse 
of Christ's sermon on the Mount." 

" But you have carefully avoided the literal 
meanings of these verses in nearly every in- 
stance," said Mr. Alleman. 

" I have attached to each one such meaning 
as the Spirit has indicated to me," said the doc- 
tor, with rather chilling dignity. " And I would 
further say that I have treated them according 
to the habit of the Church during the nineteen 
centuries that have nearly elapsed since Christ 
appeared. If I had taught from my own under- 
standing alone, I might have had misgivings ; 
but with countless prophets, apostles, and mar- 
tyrs to whom to look for example, I have felt 
secure in my position. You cannot, therefore, 
expect me to accept your views as opposed to 
those of the whole body of Christian teachers. 
The experience of the world is always of value 
in teaching the teacher what to do and say, and 
that experience " 



142 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

" Is always based upon selfishness," inter- 
rupted Mr. Alleman. 

" And that experience," continued Dr. Hum- 
bletop, " has been that the atonement made by 
Christ is the all in all of Scripture." 

The doctor called for his letters, bowed in 
a dignified manner to Mr. Alleman and the 
Squire, and departed. 

Let no one blame Dr. Humbletop for his lack 
of clear vision. A more honest, conscientious, 
and generous soul could not be found in Valley 
Rest. Receiving an income which to many of 
his acquaintances would have seemed insuffi- 
cient to a man of good breeding and refined 
tastes, he found ways of devoting more than a 
tithe of it to charities either private or public. 
He was always ready to forego his own tastes 
and inclinations in order to visit the sick, coun- 
sel the troubled, or pray with the dying ; his 
voice and vote were never lacking in affairs of 
public interest, and they were always used in 
the interest of the highest morality. But the 



AFTERMATH. 143 

doctor had been born and bred under a reli- 
gious system which he had been taught was to 
be accepted, not changed, and not even to be 
questioned. To him, as to the wise Solomon, 
the law of the Lord was perfect, the difference 
between the two men being that the doctor found 
the whole law in the letter of a single depart- 
ment of it, instead of in the Spirit, and that 
this peculiarity of his mind had come to him 
by birth, been strengthened by a special educa- 
tion, and established by habit. Whenever he 
for a moment questioned his belief, he very 
naturally contemplated the many generations 
of wiser men who had accepted beliefs like his 
own, and in their wisdom and their interpre- 
tation of Scripture his soul rested. 

And yet Squire Woodhouse was moved to 
say to Mr. Alleman : 

" It seems to me the doctor begs the ques- 
tion." 



CHAPTER IX. 

THE DOCTRINE OF INSURANCE. 

CONVERSATION upon the lesson of the 
previous Sunday was not confined to the 
quartette that met at the village post-office. 
Most of the members of the club went to the 
city on Monday morning on the little steamer 
Oak-leaf. The radicals among them were 
eager for a renewal of the fray, and the ortho- 
dox were not at all averse to displaying their 
defensive abilities. Indeed, President Lottson 
stood at the wharf, newspaper in hand, for the 
express purpose of encountering Broker Whil- 
cher, and provoking him to make an attack. 
The broker finally appeared, accompanied by 
his wife and children ; but the presence of non- 
combatants did not discourage the Soldier of 
the Cross, who had been too long in the insur- 
ance business to be willing to lose any chance 

144 



THE DOCTRINE OF INSURANCE. 145 

of strengthening his own protection against risk 
in another world. Broker Whilcher met him 
boldly ; he sent his impedimenta promptly to 
the rear to wit, the ladies' saloon and pre- 
pared for the combat which he knew was ap- 
proaching. 

" I suppose you think you whipped us yester- 
day," said President Lottson, by way of open- 
ing shot. 

." It was too clear a case to depend upon sup- 
position only," said the broker ; " but if you've 
any doubts on the subject I've no objections to 
helping defeat you again." 

" Seriously, Whilcher," said the president, 
leading his antagonist to a tete-a-tete, " do you 
realize what comes of all this nonsense ? You 
profess to be a free-thinker, so I won't ask you 
to meet me on my own ground, which is that 
the new dispensation furnishes a substitute for 
the old ; I'll only ask you to look at the matter 
from your own rationalistic point of view. A 
man must live up to his beliefs, if he is a man." 

7 



146 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

" True enough," replied the broker. " I wish 
your parson would admit the same, and preach 
accordingly. I wouldn't be cheated quite so 
often by his parishioners." 

" Business is business," said the president. 
" You don't ever let any of the theories of your 
new-fashioned philosophy stand in the way of 
your making a good trade, do you ? " 

" No, I can't say that I do," replied the 
broker. 

"And yet," said Mr. Lottson, "you believe 
in the theory of the reign of law a law which 
cannot be broken without danger of severe pen- 
alty. Now whether Christ was God or only 
man, you've got to obey the law under penalty 
of punishment, unless there is some other way 
of satisfying it. Therefore, why not accept a 
belief that leaves you as free to believe in the 
law, to admire its wisdom and beauty, as you 
are now ? Putting the thing in a business light, 
you change no beliefs you simply take on a 
new one." 



THE DOCTRINE OF INSURANCE. 147 

" I'll profess to believe nothing but what I 
understand," declared the broker. 

" You believe in geography, don't you ? " 
asked the president, " and in history, astron- 
omy, chemistry, zoology all the sciences, in 
fact ? You swear by Darwin, yet you certainly 
don't pretend to understand all that he writes 
about." 

" I accept his conclusions, because I believe 
in his wisdom and honesty," said the broker. 
" Of course I don't profess to be able to follow 
him through his scientific experiments." 

" Exactly," said the president. " And you 
believe that Christ and the apostles were honest, 
don't you ? " 

" Yes as honest as human beings ever are," 
said the broker. 

" That means as honest as Darwin and Spen- 
cer, then," said Mr. Lottson. " Then why not 
believe them as well as your scientific teachers ? " 

" Because " said Mr. Whilcher, and hesi- 
tated. 



148 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

" Because other people do" continued Lott- 
son, " and it wouldn't seem scholarly to accept 
that which was taught and accepted by men 
whose demonstrations were not made by the as- 
sistance of material things. If you stick to your 
ideas, men will hold you to them. You can't 
live up to them in your business ; you'll lose 
money if you try it, and you'll be called a fool 
for your pains. Why don't you be consistent ? 
There's no consistency between morals and 
business excepting through the medium of the 
Christian belief. Believe what you choose so 
long as you believe in a First Cause, be one of 
us, accept the promises that were made to pro- 
vide for your condition as well as that of every 
other man that finds a constant disagreement 
between life and law. Then you'll at least have 
done what is the business duty of every man 
you'll have provided against the dangers which 
you don't fear, and yet daren't defy for fear 
they may exist." 

" That's a cold-blooded way of putting it, any 



THE DOCTRINE OF INSURANCE. 149 

way," remarked the broker, after a moment or 
two of thought, which was apparently amusing. 

" I don't deny it," said the president, " but 
reason is always cold-blooded. You don't pre- 
tend that in your darling scientific hobbies it's 
anything else, do you ? You free-thinkers 
claim to monopolize reason ; but you can't help 
seeing that religion deals in it just as much as 
science does, and that it leads men to the church 
as truly as it does to the study. And I want it 
to lead you to us, as it is bound to do if you're 
as fair as you pretend to be." 

" You want me to be a religionist, do you ? " 
asked Whilcher ; " a shouting, sentimental ex- 
horter! What a fine reputation you want me 
to make and lose among my friends ! " 

" I don't want you to do anything of the sort," 
said the president. " Did you ever hear of me 
shouting or exhorting ? " 

Mr. Whilcher laughed long and loud at the 
mere thought, as would any other of the presi- 
dent's acquaintances have done. The president 



i5o EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

colored a little and contemplated the matting of 
the cabin floor, but replied : 

" It's nothing to my discredit, nor anything to 
laugh about. Because excitable people get into 
the church, drawn there by appeals to their 
emotional nature, it doesn't prove that noise 
and talk are necessary results of religion. You 
don't find any nonsense of that kind in St. Paul's 
Epistles, do you ? He was a man after my own 
heart a fellow who believed that the laborer 
was worthy of his hire, who kept himself before 
the people, who talked solid sense, and ex- 
plained how easy it was for every man to take 
advantage of the sacrifice that was made for 
him. You know the little company there is in 
the city that insures against accidents ? I don't 
believe you'd lend twenty-five cents on the dol- 
lar on its stock I'll sell you some of their cer- 
tificates cheaper than that, if you ever want any 
but whenever you make a trip out of town I 
understand you take out one of their policies." 

" So I do," said the broker. " It costs very 



THE DOCTRINE OF INSURANCE. l5l 

little, and it covers a good deal, and may come 
handy in case of trouble." 

" That's exactly the argument in favor of your 
joining the church," said the president, " except- 
ing that in the latter case a great deal more is 
promised and the cost is nothing at all." 

" Excepting church dues," said the broker, 
with a quizzical smile. 

" Well," said the president, " that's true, but 
what do they amount to in a question of risk ? " 

Broker Whilcher reflected profoundly for 
several moments, and at last said : 

" Lottson, I'm inclined to do it ; if any one 
had ever talked solid sense to me about religion 
I should have been in the Church before. Still, 
how am I going to solemnly declare before a 
body of people that I believe things which I 
really don't believe at all ? " 

" You must believe them before you declare 
any belief, and believe them for the reason 
that you believe thousands of other things be- 
cause you are told that they are true. You be- 



1 52 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

lieve many a thing on the word of worse men 
than those who wrote the Gospels and Epistles, 
for these men showed no sign of being on the 
make, while your business informants do. You 
are to believe them for lack of any definite in- 
formation to the contrary, and because there 
was no selfish object in the eye of any man 
who gave the words upon which these beliefs 
are founded." 

" I declare, I'll do it!" exclaimed the broker ; 
"but say, Lottson, do you get a commission 
on church members as you do on insurance 
risks ? Because if you do halves ! " 

" Nonsense ! " laughed the president. " You'll 
have to go before the examining committee this 
week, for next Sunday is the first of the month, 
and the regular day for the reception of new 
members." 

" Examining committee ! " exclaimed the bro- 
ker. " Whew ! I guess I'll change my mind." 

" Don't be afraid," said the president. " I'm 
a member of the committee, myself, and when 



THE DOCTRINE OF INSURANCE. 

I take a candidate in hand, the others are pretty 
sure to let him alone. I've been in business 
long enough to know how to treat a man ac- 
cording to his style, I fancy." 

The new candidate laughed heartily to him- 
self, stared at the president so intently that he 
embarrassed the latter ; then he shook his head 
with the air of a man to whom a new revelation 
had come, and he put a cigar in his mouth and 
started forward for a contemplative smoke. 

As for President Lottson, he quoted to him- 
self, with intense satisfaction, the passage : 

" Whoso shall convert a sinner from the error 
of his ways shall save a soul from death and 
cover a multitude of sins." 

Then he searched the boat diligently for 
Captain Maile, and when he had found him he 
told him the news with evident exultation, and 
the captain replied : 

" Another crooked stick reserved unto the 
final burning." 

" See here, Maile," said Mr. Lottson, " this is 

7* 



1 54 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

nonsense, and you're the last man who should 
be guilty of it. Your father and grandfather 
were among the founders of the church in this 
section of country." 

" That's true," said the captain, " and to save 
the family reputation from disgrace, I've had to 
spend some of the money they left me in trying 
to undo some of the mischief they did." 

" Then you're a fool," said the president. 
" That may sound like plain talk, but it's true ; 
you should have learned, as your ancestors did, 
that religion is one thing and business is 
another." 

" Oh, I've learned it," said the captain, " and 
I've also learned that the devil, if there is a 
devil, is the father of that precious notion, and 
that it's worth millions to him. Do you sup- 
pose I think any more of men because they 
belong to the church ? Do you imagine I look 
over your policies any less carefully than I do 
those of Bennett, who don't believe in God, 
devil, or anybody else ? Do you suppose I'll 



THE DOCTRINE OF INSURANCE. l55 

take Whilcher's word a minute quicker when 
he gets into the church than I do now? Not a 
bit of it. The church is the hope of the honest 
and the mask of the rascally. How did you 
like the way the lesson went yesterday ? " 

" I liked the way it ended better than any- 
thing else," said the president. 

" I knew you would," said the captain ; "and 
if they spring a reconsideration on you next 
Sunday, wont you be disgusted ! " 

Mr. Buffle had approached the couple as they 
conversed, and said : 

*' Gentlemen, what do you think of yesterday's 
exercises ? " 

" Both dissatisfied," promptly replied the cap- 
tain. " Lottson don't like the way they began, 
and I'm sorry that they ended when they did." 

" I'm counting noses to see if we can't secure 
a reconsideration," said Mr. BufBe. " I don't 
like the way in which the main question was 
dodged, and I want to hear more of it." 

" Then you'd better go over to the Unitarian 



1 56 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

Church," said President Lottson. "They'll talk 
morality to you there to your heart's content." 

" They will in our church, too," replied Mr. 
Buffle, " unless prevented by trickery. One 
would suppose that morality was something to 
be afraid of by the way people dodge talking 
about it." 

Mr. Lottson assumed a very high-toned air, 
and replied : 

" It isn't that morality is feared, but that when 
men fall to talking about it they forget that there 
is anything higher." 

" Perhaps it's because they never talk about 
it excepting at the beginning," said Mr. Buffle, 
" and they're anxious to begin at the bottom, as 
men have to do in business and everything else, 
if they really want to learn. I begin to think 
it's a subject about which there isn't much 
known. It's often seemed to me in churches 
that men are very much like the apprentices in 
my ship-yard ; the first thing these boys want to 
do is to paint the names and designs on the 



THE DOCTRINE OF INSURANCE. l/ 

paddle-boxes, though that's the very last thing 
we generally attend to. Not one in a hundred 
of them are ever anxious to know how keels are 
laid and hulls are shaped." 

" That's only business ; isn't it, Lottson ? " 
asked Captain Maile. " Business and religion 
are two very different things, and a smart man 
like you, Buffle, ought to know it, and not go 
about arranging for Sunday exercises to torment 
men into thinking what they ought to do, in- 
stead of letting them enjoy a day of holy rest 
and delight in the contemplation of what they're 
going to get when they can't stay here any 
longer to get for themselves." 

Mr. Lottson turned abruptly away, and re- 
marked to Mr. Prymm that Captain Maile was 
the most hardened scoffer he had ever known. 
He also informed Prymm of the movement in 
favor of a reconsideration of the lesson of the 
previous Sunday. 

" I shall oppose it," said Mr., Pry mm with 
more than his ordinary decision. " I entered the 



1 58 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

class with the hope of learning something of 
God's will as revealed by the Scriptures ; but if 
it is the desire of the remaining members, or a 
majority of them, that we shall linger for weeks 
over single verses, I shall find it more conve- 
nient and profitable to devote the corresponding 
hour of every Sabbath to private study and con- 
templation." 

" I suppose," said President Lottson, noting 
the approach of Judge Cottaway and Deacon 
Bates elbow to elbow, the latter looking very 
solemn and the judge exceedingly bored, " I 
suppose it will be like Cottaway to insinuate that 
the matter should be talked over and over again 
until doomsday. It takes a lawyer to string a 
subject out until he doesn't know the end of it 
when he sees it." 

" Lawyers like the judge have some faculties 
which we might imitate with profit," said Mr. 
BufHe. "They believe in listening to all the 
evidence and determining accordingly. Evi- 
dence seems a something which the members 



THE DOCTRINE OF INSURANCE. IOQ 

of this class are afraid of, and practice based 
upon it is still more terrifying. Ah, good 
morning, judge we want to have another talk 
next Sunday on the subject of yesterday's les- 
son, and knowing your experience in sifting 
evidence, we would be very grateful if you 
would charge your conscience with the case, 
and become responsible for it." 

11 If the rule can be suspended, I shall be glad 
to throw upon it such light as I can," said the 
judge. 

" We were talking, gentlemen," said Deacon 
Bates, " upon the spiritual significance of right- 
eousness. I suggested, and the judge was 
pleased to agree with me, that righteousness 
had a spiritual as well as a merely moral signifi- 
cance." 

"It certainly has," said President Lottson 
promptly, " and if for a while we could divest 
ourselves of the materialistic notions which pre- 
vail as badly in the Church as out of it, we 
would obtain some new light on this subject 



160 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

which is so puzzling when considered only by 
the human mind. We would realize that with 
the prince of this world Christ has nothing to 
do ; that while in the world we are under the 
dominion of the world." 

"And that our real life does not begin until 
we are with God," said Deacon Bates, by way 
of supplement. " This world is a place of prepa- 
ration for another, and it is what we are to do 
and be in that blessed sphere that Christ came 
to teach us. The things of this world are really 
the unreal only the things which are unseen 
are eternal. How much righteousness had the 
crucified thief who rebuked his fellow for revil- 
ing Christ ? Yet to him were spoken the 
words which every Christian longs to hear, 
1 This day shalt thou be with me in Paradise/ 
Belief in Christ, longing for him and his glory, 
are what should occupy our thoughts while on 
earth." 

" And do it so closely that we shall have an 
opportunity to follow him. Of course when a 



THE DOCTRINE OF INSURANCE. l6l 

man believes in a presidential candidate, he be- 
lieves and does nothing else. He doesn't vote 
for him, act according to his political theories, 
spend money for him, or any such nonsense. 
He merely believes in him, and does or leaves 
undone everything else, feeling sure that it's the 
candidate's business to make everything come 
right. That isn't the way you gentlemen talked 
last campaign, though." 

The deacon smiled pityingly. " There you 
go again," said he, " mixing the temporal and 
the spiritual, though they're not the slightest 
bit alike." 

" Certainly not," said Captain Maile ; " so it's 
heretical to try to bring heavenly influences to 
bear upon earthly things. You want people to 
understand that God is not God of the living, 
but of the dead, though that wasn't the way 
Christ said it when he was alive." 

Each man put on a pugnacious face, and be- 
took himself to his own reflections, and these 
lasted until the boat touched her pier in the city. 



CHAPTER X. 

A DECISIVE BATTLE. 

WHEN the Scripture Club assembled on 
the following Sunday, it was in a 
manner somewhat more quiet and less cordial 
than usual. Mr. Jodderel volunteered the open- 
ing prayer, and then Deacon Bates began to 
read the fifth beatitude, when Mr. Radley 
said : 

"Mr. Leader, a majority of the class would 
like to hear a further discussion of the last sub- 
ject. As the original mover of the resolution 
restricting the class to one Sunday to a verse, 
which motion I made with the almost unani- 
mous support of the class, it is fitting that I 
should take the initiative in securing a further 
hearing upon any subject of which the majority 

have not heard enough. I therefore move that 

162 



A DECISIVE BATTLE. 163 

the rule referred to be rescinded for one Sun- 
day, and that we continue the discussion of the 
fourth beatitude." 

" Second the motion," said Squire Wood- 
house. 

" Mr. Leader," exclaimed Mr. Jodderel, " I 
object. The time of this class should be spent 
upon the consideration of subjects according to 
their relative importance. If the nature and 
whereabouts of the Kingdom of Heaven is 
worth only a single hour of discussion, this 
minor question of righteousness certainly isn't 
entitled to any more. I must oppose the reso- 
lution." 

" It was apparently very unwise to adopt such 
a rule," remarked Mr. Prymm, " if only to be 
rescinded or suspended whenever the curiosity 
of any of the members may desire it. We are 
adults instead of children, and cannot afford, for 
the sake of consistency, the abrogation of this 
rule, especially when every one present has un- 
limited informal and social opportunities for dis- 



164 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

cussion, as, indeed, they have already been 
doing all week long." 

Mr. Prymm looked appealingly toward Pre- 
sident Lottson, but that gentleman seemed in 
the depths of a gloomy reverie, and unwilling 
to be disturbed. For Mr. Lottson's convert had 
relapsed ; he had, before the evening on which 
the examining committee met, dropped a note 
to Mr. Lottson, saying that the longer he medi- 
tated upon the matter the more he felt that the 
proposed action would be hypocritical ; that if 
the church would not detect the hypocrisy, the 
rest of the world would, and he preferred to 
retain the respect of his friends. This note of 
Broker Whilcher's had not only inflicted disap- 
pointment upon President Lottson, but it had 
brought him some tormenting anxieties. If 
Whilcher, who was a shrewd observer of men, 
really meant what he said, was it not possible 
and probable that he, President Lottson, who 
believed all that he had asked the broker to 
believe, and very little more, might also be 



A DECISIVE BATTLE. 1 65 

looked upon as a hypocrite ? He knew that his 
reputation in his own church was not all that he 
could have wished it to be ; but, looked at in 
sober earnest, his church, to his eyes, consisted 
of such of its members as were city business 
men, like himself; there was still another ele- 
ment in the church, however, and it was numer- 
ically the largest, which judged a man by his 
professions, and Mr. Lottson trusted that among 
these he still retained his respect. But then 
came a more annoying thought. Business was 
business, and business men would take no man's 
word any the more implicitly because he was 
a church member. Could it be possible that 
among these he passed not only for a business 
man of ordinary morality, but as a hypocrite 
too ? Was he not really honest -in his beliefs ? 
He certainly was ; he could lay his hand on his 
heart and swear honestly that every religious 
belief he possessed he had acquired by the ex- 
ercise of his best logical faculties. Why, then, 
should he be considered hypocritical ? Could it 



1 66 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

be possible that the world saw something more 
in the Bible than church members like himself 
did ? Certainly not. How could the world do 
anything of the sort ? It had never studied the 
Bible as he had done, and as fathers of the 
faith, with whom he had never for a moment 
dared to compare himself, had done. And then 
to have a prolonged consideration of the late 
lesson go on in his hearing while he felt as he 
did ! It was unendurable. He would have 
departed silently and without explanation, and 
betaken himself to Dr. Humbletop's class, had 
he not previously informed Builder Stott that he 
would remain and look after orthodox interests 
in the club. 

But as he reached this point of his reflec- 
tions, Mr. Prymm's remarks ended, and his 
eye caught Mr. Prymm's, and the exasperating 
character of the doctrine of non-paying works 
seemed more unendurable to him than ever, so 
he controlled himself, rose to his feet, and said : 

" Mr. Leader, in the interest of Christianity, 



A DECISIVE BATTLE. 167 

as defined by the Master, I also object to the 
further consideration of this subject, if it is urged 
with the spirit that has been manifested. Christ 
said, ' My yoke is easy and my burden is light/ 
but some of the members of this class remind 
me of the Pharisees of whom Christ said that 
'they bound upon men's shoulders burdens 
grievous to be borne.' If religion was made 
for anything, it was made for belief and use in 
this present wbrld ; I object, therefore, to its 
being made to appear so unlovely and severe 
that those who most need it are frightened from 
it. Those of us who believe would never have 
done so had we supposed that men would be 
allowed to set aside Christ's merciful words, and 
establish the commandments the notions of 
men in their place. I believe as thoroughly in 
righteousness as any man, but I don't care to 
sit here and listen to its meaning being changed 
by men who care more for their own opinions 
than they do for the commandments of God. 
And so I shall vote against the resolution, and 



1 68 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

ask all others to do so, if they believe in the 
righteousness of God instead of that of man." 

" I don't see why it's a Scriptural subject at 
all," said Mr. Hopper, relinquishing for a mo- 
ment his hold upon the review containing the 
article on " The True Location of the Holy 
Sepulchre." " It was announced by Jesus, I 
know ; but it was before he made that atone- 
ment which set aside mere human righteous- 
ness as a requisite to salvation. I move we 
drop the subject." 

" The gentleman's motion is not in order, un- 
less in the form of an amendment," said Dea- 
con Bates. 

" Mr. Hopper's suggestion that this beati- 
tude was given before the atonement was made," 
said young Mr. Waggett, "is so original and so 
full of practical interest that I should like to 
hear a further discussion of the subject, if only 
to see whether this point cannot be substan- 
tiated or, rather, whether it can be successfully 
opposed." 



A DECISIVE BATTLE. 169 

President Lottson leaned over the back of 
young Mr. Waggett's chair, and whispered : 

"Don't make an ass of yourself, /can see 
where this thing is bound to lead us, if you 
can't ; vote the other way when the question is 
put." 

A moment or two of silence ensued, and then 
Deacon Bates put the question to vote. A 
strong response of " Ay !" was soon followed by 
an equally noisy "No!" and some one called for 
a rising vote. Up rose Judge Cottaway, Squire 
Woodhouse, Broker Whilcher, Mr. Radley, Prin- 
cipal Alleman, Mr. Buffle, Lawyer Scott, Dr. 
Fahrenglotz, and Captain Maile, nine in all, 
while for the negative there were but seven votes, 
Mr. Bungfloat and young Banty keeping their 
seats during both votes, the former with a help- 
less expression of countenance, and the latter 
with a contemptuous smile. 

"The ayes have it," said the leader, and 
Builder Stott, who, until that moment, had lis- 
tened at the key-hole, hurried off to Dr. Hum- 



I 70 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

bletop's class-room and stated that the club was 
determined on carrying free speech into the 
ground and the club with it. 

" Mark my words," said the builder, " the 
Scripture Club is as good as dead." 

The discussion was opened by Judge Cottaway, 
according to the special request of the founder 
of the club, and the old jurist spoke as follows : 

" Estimated according to the rules of evi- 
dence, the requirement for righteousness never 
ends in the Holy Scriptures, and never can end 
while the Church hold the revealed will of God 
as an authoritative rule of guidance. The law 
was the topic of lawgivers, prophets, the Psalm- 
ist, the wise Solomon, and all of them regarded 
it as the only substitute for the personal pres- 
ence and command of God. Christ never failed 
to hold it up for reverence and obedience, ex- 
cepting when minor points of it were of less 
vital importance than that of those for whose 
direction it was given." 

" That's it, exactly," interrupted Mr. Jod- 



A DECISIVE BATTLE. Ijl 

derel. " The law was made for man, not man 
for the law, and when man can't live according 
to the law, the law must give way, as it did 
by express command when Christ condemned 
the Jews for rebuking the disciples when they 
plucked corn on the Sabbath day." 

" I imagine that it was more for the sake of 
rebuking hypocrisy than to defend the improvi- 
dence of his disciples that Christ spoke as he 
did on the occasion referred to," said the judge. 
" But he declared the binding force of the law 
more than once, and he not only urged it upon 
the people, but increased its scope and severity 
by explaining that obedience should not be 
only to the letter, but to the spirit of the heav- 
enly commands. Mercy, love, and compassion 
are not at all inconsistent with the closest appli- 
cation of the law, though men have strangely 
come to imagine that they are. In this same 
matchless sermon we are studying you will find 
his definition of some methods of violating the 
seventh commandment. The spiritual rule 



172 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

from which Christ deduced these conclusions 
may be applied to all the other commandments 
with results equally startling. ' Thou shalt not 
steal/ is the simple letter of the eighth com- 
mandment, but according to the new method 
prescribed by Christ for the translation of the 
law according to Moses, to deprive a man of 
his peace, of his patience, of his faith in man- 
kind, even if done in ways permissible in busi- 
ness circles, is as truly theft as is the depriving 
a man of his money by actual robbery. And 
as I am a member of the bar, as I have been a 
law- maker, and an adjudicator of legal ques- 
tions, I feel that I am severe upon no one more 
than my own old self, when I say that to re- 
cover the amount of a debt by legal means 
which compel the debtor to part with property 
of value several times greater than that of the 
property upon which the debt is based, is theft 
of the most heinous description, for even under 
the most merciful construction of the most 
careless law, the only theft at all pardonable is 



A DECISIVE BATTLE. 1 73 

that of small amounts in cases of dire necessity; 
whereas my experience in legal collections is 
that not once in a hundred times are they made 
excepting of men in the direst distress, and of 
utter inability to pay." 

" But Christ mercifully forbore to give such 
interpretations to all the commandments," said 
Mr. Jodderel, " and I have always thought his 
refraining from doing so was one of the sure 
proofs of his divinity. Of course he saw the 
people around him his own disciples, even 
doing hundreds of things that were wrong; but 
he knew their natures were too feeble to live 
up to the holy ideas which were natural enough 
to Him, so he said little, except to exhort them 
to sin no more." 

" Very true," said the judge, " but since then 
the Christian world has had the benefit of 
nearly twenty centuries of growth under the 
instructions of Christ. Men have grown less 
animal, more intellectual ; less brutal, more 
spiritual. The passions and appetites that once 



174 EVERYBODY S NEIGHBORS. 

seemed uncontrollable have come more and 
more under restraint under the influence of 
generations of right living. Men nowadays 
endure physical discipline from which the as- 
cetics of Christ's time, or even of the middle 
ages, would have shrunk with fear. The 
world is lamentably full of wickedness and 
weakness, but it has now what it did not have 
when Moses gave his law it has in every 
community one or more men who show by 
right living what a perfect control man may 
exert over his lower faculties, or, rather, over 
the lower developments of faculties which in 
the clearer light of to-day develop into noble 
virtues. But the stronger sins die hardest, so 
to-day we find, in communities where murder 
is unheard of, Sabbath-breaking unknown, pro- 
fanity unspoken, and the greater crimes men- 
tioned in the Decalogue seldom or never 
brought to light in such localities we find 
the greed of gain made the excuse of unfair 
dealings between man and man ; it stirs up 



A DECISIVE BATTLE. 1 75 

strife more vicious than that which took place 
when the civilized world was one grand camp, 
and when to kill a man for his possessions was 
a deed praiseworthy rather than otherwise, es- 
pecially when the victim might, with any excuse, 
be called an enemy." 

" One might suppose, from the judge's re- 
marks, that the world had but one sin and 
only one virtue," said Mr. Jodderel. 

" According to Scripture," exclaimed the 
judge, " there is but one virtue, for it includes all 
others. Its name is Love will the gentleman 
remember that the assertion is Christ's, and not 
mine ? There is more than one sin, truly ; but 
not one of the dreadful number could exist 
were the one virtue practiced as it should be. 
And this brings me back to the leading idea of 
the lesson, from which I have unintentionally 
been diverted toward specialties. And yet, I 
know not how better to explain the nature of 
righteousness according to the law, than to 
continue in use the illustration that I have been 



176 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

using the treatment, by each other, of men in 
their business affairs. For there are but few 
relations of men that cannot be classified under 
business heads. By implication, sins against 
self and nature belong in the same category, 
for the man who impairs in any way his own 
physical and mental capital, injures to a greater 
or less extent the whole community in which he 
resides. To save man and to bless him is the 
whole aim of the law, for it is only by man in his 
proper condition that God can be fully glorified. 
Thus regarded, the way of righteousness can 
never seem hard, tiresome, or narrow it is 
rather the only highway which is always delight- 
ful. The promise given, therefore, in this beati- 
tude is the most precious in the whole Bible, for 
there is no good it does not include, nor any 
evil which it does not help us to shun." 1 

' That's the first satisfactory description I 
ever heard of the law," remarked Mr. Radley. 
" I wonder why other men preachers, even 
never talk about it in the same way." 



A DECISIVE BATTLE. 1 77 

" They'd lose all their wealthy pew-holders 
if they did," answered Captain Maile. 

"Not all," said Mr. Buffle, " at least, not if 
Tm as well off in this world's goods as I think 
I am. And I don't propose to forget what I 
have heard." 

" It is very evident, however," said President 
Lottson, " that Christ knew that this idea of 
the law which I admit to be as sound as it is 
beautiful could never be fulfilled by man, or 
he would never have considered it necessary 
to make an atonement for sin, and urge people 
to accept it, instead of trying to be saved by. 
righteousness alone. The gentleman lays great 
stress upon the failings of business men. They 
exist about as he has painted them, but had he 
spent his own life in business instead of among 
the abstractions of a learned profession, he would 
see the other side of the case, which is that 
business is selfish, that it cannot be otherwise, 
and that man's only hope lies in Christ's 

promises." 

8* 



178 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

if Only hope of what ? " asked Squire Wood- 
house. 

" Of salvation, of course," replied the presi- 
dent. 

" Then, what about the world ? " asked Mr. 
Radley. " Is nothing to be done here for God 
and man ? Did we come into the world 
for no purpose but to get out of it in the best 
shape we can ? Has God no purposes to fulfill 
here, or did he only make this wonderful com- 
bination of beauty and utility, that we call 
the world, to be a mere stage for blundering 
and wrong-doing ?" 

" No," answered young Mr. Waggett ; " it is 
to fit us all for entrance to the glorious company 
of angels, prophets, and martyrs." 

" We had better all die in infancy then," said 
Mr. Radley, " before we've been unfitted for 
such society, and been compelled to begin all 
over again. What a contemptible blunderer 
God must be, if the common religious idea of 
the use of the world is correct ! " 



A DECISIVE BATTLE. 1 79 

" Gentlemen," said Mr. Alleman, " it seems 
to me that this class has by this time plain- 
ly indicated its religious measure. We have 
met together many times ; we have expressed 
our own views, and listened to many others ; 
we have individually indicated considerable 
ability and ingenuity ; but I am unable to dis- 
cover that even a respectable minority have 
changed their beliefs. Of the sincerity of belief 
of those who have spoken there can be no 
doubt; but something more than ability and sin- 
cerity is necessary to retain usefulness for a 
body of men, who are determined to approach 
intellectually no nearer to each other. As we 
cannot agree intellectually, why can we not do 
so morally, and establish for the class a higher 
motive than can be furnished by religious 
curiosity or tenacity of special theological opin- 
ions ? Free speech has been the distinctive 
feature of the class, but all that freedom of 
expression can gain for us has already been 
gained. Why cannot we, therefore, form a 



180 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

new and solemn compact that we will, each one 
according to his own special religious belief 
and light, strictly order our lives according to 
the moral ideas which we all admit are founc 
in the Bible and are above criticism ? " 

" What !" exclaimed Mr. Jodderel, " and turn 
a religious organization into a society for the 
encouragement of mere morality ? None for 
me!" 

" I should consider such a course as relig- 
iously suicidal, if not blasphemous," declared 
Mr. Prymm. 

" The man who does it can bid good-bye to 
his property," said Mr. Hopper, "and I, for 
one, am determined to give a good account of 
my stewardship." 

" He can bid good-bye to his chance of sal- 
vation, too," said young Mr. Waggett, " if he's 
not going to think more of it than he does of 
mere morality." 

" Good-bye to his fun, too," suggested young 
Mr. Banty. 



A DECISIVE BATTLE. l8l 

"If we cannot leave all to follow Him," re- 
marked Deacon Bates, who had once felt himself 
called to mission work, but successfully resisted 
the call, " it would certainly be unseemly to do 
so for the sake of mere worldly righteousness." 

" 'Twould revolutionize society," said Law- 
yer Scott, " and no man should attempt such a 
thing without the most careful preparation." 

" Doesn't Herbert Spencer say something 
about morality being at the top of everything?" 
asked Mr. Buffle of Broker Whilcher. 

" Ye es," said the broker ; " but he consid- 
ers that it's wrong to sacrifice one's business, 
as I'd have to do to live according to the plan 
suggested." 

" If Christ had intended that morality should 
have been so much," said President Lottson, 
" he would have talked more about it, and 
less about other things. He knew what the 
world needed, what it could stand, and what it 
couldn't." 

" As if he wasn't all the while insisting upon 



1 82 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

morality," exclaimed Mr. Alleman. " Captain 
Maile, you're certainly with us! You've al- 
ways talked as if you were." 

The captain made a wry face. 

" I've talked against hypocrisy that's what 
I've done," said he. " I've got no special relig- 
ious belief myself, but I hate to see holes in 
those of other people." 

" I," said Dr. Fahrenglotz, " would yield ad- 
herence to such a system, were it not that men 
disagree as to what morality is, and I do not 
wish to subject myself to any arbitrary rule or 
agreement. The soul of man should be free." 

Judge Cottaway arose and gave his hand to 
Mr. Alleman, and several members affected to 
consider this action as a sign that the meeting 
had adjourned. The party dispersed more rap- 
idly than it had ever done before, and left the 
judge, the principal, the Squire, Mr. Buffle, and 
Mr. Radley talking to each other. 



CHAPTER XL 

CONCLUSION. 

WHEN next the Scripture Club convened 
there were visible some vacant places. 
Mr. Alleman was not there, and Mr. Prymm 
had betaken himself to Dr. Humbletop's class, 
where he might study the Word of God without 
perplexing annoyances from those who could 
not, for even an hour in a week, and that hour 
on the Sabbath day, let the world out of their 
thoughts. Several of the members had en- 
deavored to dissuade Mr. Prymm from his in- 
tention, but he remained firm. Broker Whilcher 
went back to his Unitarian brethren, but even 
among them he was noted as having lost his old 
interest in the brotherhood of man and the 
rights of humanity. Young Mr. Banty drifted 

off to nowhere in particular ; but for weeks he 

183 



184 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

told to every irreligious acquaintance the story 
of the difficulties in the Scripture Club, and 
great was the sinful hilarity excited thereby. 

The difference of opinion on the subject of 
righteousness had upon the class an effect so 
peculiar that Dr. Fahrenglotz did not hesitate to 
express an opinion that free speech was a dead 
letter, and he thereafter took pains to absent 
himself from the company of the assumed custo- 
dians thereof, although he was frequently and 
earnestly besought to favor the club with the 
pure logical aspect of questions, the import of 
which the members had first obscured by much 
sophistry. 

Judge Cottaway, Squire Woodhouse, Princi- 
pal Alleman, Mr. Radley, and the founder of the 
class contracted a habit of meeting informally 
at each other's residence, and as subscription 
papers increased in numbers soon after, there 
was little or no curiosity manifested by their 
late associates to know what was talked about 
at these meetings. It was a noteworthy fact, 



CONCLUSION. 1 85 

and the subject of much dismal head-shaking 
among the churchly, that these five men repre- 
sented four different denominations, and that 
they finally deprived Father McGarry's flock of 
a member who had several times listened to the 
discussions of the club in its earlier days, whom 
they failed to provide with a new denomina- 
tional faith in place of his old one. 

As for Captain Maile, he was thereafter the 
most shamefaced and silent man at Valley Rest. 
He was by no means the first man who had 
mistaken the critical faculty for character ; but 
he was not a man of large information in the 
history of the world outside of Valley Rest, so 
he spent several years of his life in indignant 
yet humble self-questionings as to his peculiar 
mental organization. He finally admitted to 
himself that to keep his fault-finding disposition 
under control, he must devote more persistent 
attention to it than he had ever given his better 
self before. Several years later he identified 
himself closely with all the practical work of the 



1 86 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

Second Church, and distinguished himself as 
being the man of all others who could accept 
advice without showing impatience. 

But the remainder of the club remained faith- 
ful, and they devoted themselves to study with 
an earnestness that was simply magnificent. 
They would divide each lesson into sections, 
and assign a section to each member, which 
member would in turn collect and present to 
the class all available information upon the sub- 
ject, and some of the young lady attendants 
pronounced some of these addresses more in- 
teresting than sermons. Mr. Jodderel naturally 
took in charge all topics relating to the future 
state of existence, and as the class imposed no 
arbitrary distinctions as to time, he found no 
cause to complain. To President Lottson fell 
the duty of enlightening the class upon the 
geography of Palestine, and so thoroughly did 
he do his work that one of his papers was asked 
for publication, and copies of it were accepted 
with thanks by several learned societies. Mr. 



CONCLUSION. 187 

Prymm, who finally came back to the class after 
having been assured that for months it had dis- 
cussed no subject not purely scriptural, made 
some remarks upon the atonement which were 
finally collected in a volume entitled " A Lay- 
man's Views of Christ's Great Work," and the 
book received many carefully worded non-com- 
mittal notices from the religious press, though 
the bulk of the edition still remains in the store- 
house of the publisher. Young Mr. Waggett 
kept an observant eye for all topics bearing lit- 
erally upon the subject of salvation. Mr. Hop- 
per found at last an opportunity to read his 
long-cherished essay upon ''The True Location 
of the Holy Sepulchre," with many notes, sug- 
gestions, and emendations by himself. And the 
class grew in membership and in the number of 
listeners, and there was never heard in it a per- 
sonality or a revival of old disputes which had 
time and again rended the church. Nothing 
was said in its whole subsequent history which 



1 88 EVERYBODY'S NEIGHBORS. 

could cast discredit upon the daily life of any 
member, or cause Satan to feel any serious 
apprehensions for the continued activity of his 
own business. 



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